01 (31 



,S9 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf »Cll« 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



1 



THE 



Way of Salvation 



BY THOS. 0.' SUMMERS, D.D. 






NASHVILLE, TENN.: 

Southern Methodist Publishing House. 

1879. 



lr 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 

J. B. McFERRIN, Agent, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 
OF Congress 



WASHINGTON 



DEDICATION. 



TO HUBBARD HINDE KAVANAUGH, D.D., 

Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

Eeyerexd and Dear Sir: — For more than half a 
century you have known ''the way of salvation," and you 
have clearly "showed" it to many thousands. By in- 
scribing your name in this volume, I wish to make the 
impression that its teachings are in accordance with those 
which you have so long and so successfully proclaimed 
to the world. May I be permitted, either by your open 
avowal or your silent consent, to entertain this opinion? 
May you, by reason of strength, and by special grace, 
be allowed long to survive the utmost designated limit 
of life, wliich you are fast approaching,- so that, "when 
old and gray-headed," you may still "show to this gen- 
eration" "the way of salvation," which you have shoAved 
to more than one generation in the past! 

With warm personal affection, and due respect for the 
official position which you so worthily fill, I am your 
brother in Christ, TIIOS. O. SUMMEES. 



PREFACE. 



nnHE following treatise was written Expressly 
-L to meet an urgent demand for a plain, con- 
cise statement of "the way of salvation." We 
have many large, learned, and controversial works 
on the subject; some of these are excellent, and 
are doing good service ; but they are not what is 
wanted to put into the hands of one who wishes 
a concise, practical, satisfactory answer to the 
question, "What must I do to be saved?" 

We have not written in a controversial spirit, 
nor with a controversial design ; yet we have felt 
the expediency of issuing a work of this sort, as 
many are misled by Antinomian views set forth 
by certain so-called evangelists, of which we have 
read and heard, strongly favoring the teaching 
of John Agricola, the father of modern Antino- 
mianism and the Antinomians of the last century, 
w^hich called out Fletcher's Checks to Antino- 

(5) 



6 PREFACE. 

mianism. We wish to show the inquirer after 
the way of salvation that it lies between Anti- 
nomianism on the one hand, and Pharisaism on 
the other, and that it is as clear of Rationalism 
as it is of Fanaticism — the golden mean, the 
King's highway, so marked out in the Scripture 
that wayfaring men, though fools, if sincere, shall 
not err therein. 

The directions here given are, of course, taken 
from the Bible, the only infallible standard of 
truth and duty. From it we ascertain what is 
salvation — what God has done for our salvation 
— and what we must do to be saved. 

These three questions are discussed in a man- 
ner as plain and practical as possible. 

It is not necessary to say that man is viewed 
as a sinner, exposed to the wrath of God and in 
danger of eternal death. It would be absurd to 
speak of salvation, if there were no sin and mis- 
ery from which we are to be saved. 

In the discussion of the various subjects here 
brought to view, reference is made to the Confes- 
sions, Creeds, Catechisms, Liturgies, Homilies, and 
Hymnals of the Church, in its various branches, 



PREFACE. 7 

from the earliest Christian times to the present. 
Experimental religion is often inculcated more 
effectually in a song than in a sermon. And it 
is a pleasing and suggestive fact that real Chris- 
tians, in every age, and every Communion, and 
clime, join with one consent in singing harmo- 
niously the song of redemption : " Unto him that 
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own 
blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto 
God and his Father ; to him be glory and domin- 
ion forever and ever. Amen." For this reason 
we have dealt largely in "those blessed hymns" 
— as Kichard Watson styles them — not only to 
show the catholic belief in the great cardinal 
doctrine of salvation by grace, through faith in 
Christ, but also to furnish vehicles of thought 
and emotion for a penitent sinner and an hum- 
ble believer, in their approaches to the throne 
of grace. We have been embarrassed in making 
selections from those beautiful songs, as there are 
so many of them. 

If the perusal of this treatise shall be so blessed 
of God as to add one more sinner, "saved by 
grace," to the glorious company of heavenly 



8 PREFACE. 

" harpers harping with their harps/' in the an- 

tiphonies of the redeemed, what a compensation 

will this be to the author — the thought is "too 

transporting ! " O that it may be so ! 

T. O. S. 
Nashville, Tenn., June 30, 1879. 



CONTENTS. 



OHAPTEK I. 

PAGE 

What is Salvation?. 11 

CHAPTEK II. 

What has God Done for our Salva- 
tion? 19 

CHAPTEK III. 
What Must I Do to be Saved? 56 

APPENDIX. 

Note 1 89 

Note II 114 

Note III 163 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 



CHAPTEK I. 

What is Saltation? 

Salvation in his name there is ; 

Salvation "from sin, death, and hell ; 
Salvation into glorious bliss ; 

How great salvation, who can tell ? 
But all he hath, for mine I claim : 
I dare believe in Jesus' name. 

SALVATION, according to the Scriptures, is 
deliverance from sin and its consequences iu 
this world and the world to come. 

1. The Westminster and Methodist Catechisms teachy 
and all orthodox Communions hold, that ''sin is any 
want of conformity to, or transgression of, the law of 
Godr 

(1) It is usually divided into original sin, and 
actual sin. " Original sin standeth not in the fol- 
lowing of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly talk, 

(11) 



12 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

but it is the corruption of the nature of every 
man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring 
of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from orig- 
inal righteousness, and of his own nature inclined 
to evil, and that continually/' So the Anglican 
and Methodist Confessions teach, and all other or- 
thodox Communions teach the same. Actual sin 
consists in leaving undone what God requires, or 
doing what God forbids. 

(2) The law of God which prescribes our duty is 
found in the Ten Commandments, as pronounced 
on Sinai and expounded in Christ's Sermon on the 
Mount, and in other parts of Scripture, and espe- 
cially in the two great commandments: "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This 
is the first and great commandment. And the sec- 
ond is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself On these two commandments hang all the 
law and the prophets.'' (Matt. xxii. 37-40.) 

The la>w^ which prescribes our duty discovers our 
sin — for "by the law is the knowledge of sin" 
(Rom. iii. 20) — and threatens the penalty — "the 
soul that sinneth it shall die" (Ezek. xviii. 20); 
but, in the nature of the case, it makes no provi- 
sion for pardon — 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 13 

Since to convince, and to condemn, 
Is all the law can do. 

2. The consequences of sin are dreadful in the ex- 
treme. 

(1) Sin incurs God's displeasure, as it offends all 
his perfections, which are therefore opposed to the 
sinner. " Thou art of purer eyes than to behold 
evil, and canst not look on iniquity." (Hab. i. 13.) 
" For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of 
men." (Rom. i. 18.) 

(2) Sin produces disorder in the universe. 

By sin we ally ourselves to the rebel angels, who 
were cast out of heaven for their revolt and trea- 
son, and we indorse the fall of our first parents, 

who 

Brought death into the world, and all our Avoe, 
"With loss of Eden. 

(3) Sin ruins the sinner. 

Its effect on his body is most pernicious. "The 
body is dead because of sin." All the ills which 
flesh is heir to result, directly or indirectly, from sin. 
Revenge, intemperance, licentiousness, and other 
vices, produce fearful effects upon the physical sys- 
tem. "And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh 
and thy body are consumed." (Prov. v. 11.) 



14 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

But its effect on the soul is far more dreadful. 
It. depraves all its faculties — intellect, sensibilities, 
and will — and leaves the sinner without help or 
hope, either in this world or the world to come. 
" Ye shall die in your sins : whither I go ye cannot 
come." ( John viii. 21.) "Who shall be punished 
with everlasting destruction from the presence of 
the Lord, and from the glory of his power." (2 
Thess. i. 9.) "For the wages of sin is death." 
(Rom. vi. 23.) 

When the sinner is convinced of sin — thoroughly 
awakened to his awful condition — by the Holy 
Spirit, no wonder that he is driven to despair. 
The confessions of Luther, Augustin, and Bun- 
yan's Pilgrim, are but the echoes of the language 
Paul puts into the mouth of the awakened sinner : 
" For I was alive without the law once : but when 
the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 
And the commandment, which was ordained to life, 
I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion 
by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew 
me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the command- 
ment holy, and just, and good. Was then that 
which is good made death unto me? God forbid. 
But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in 
me by that which is good ; that sin by the com- 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 15 

mandment might become exceeding sinful. For 
we know that the law is spiritual ; but I am carnal, 
sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not ; 
for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, 
that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I 
consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it 
is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) 
dwelleth no good thing ; for to will is present with 
me ; but how to perform that which is good I find 
not. For the good that I would, I do not ; but the 
evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do 
that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin 
that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when 
I would do good, evil is present with me. For I 
delight in the law of God after the inward man : 
but I see another law in my members, warring 
against the laAv of my mind, and bringing me into 
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death ? I thank God through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I 
myself serve the law of God ; but with the flesh 
the law of sin." (Kom. vii. 9-25.) We must have 
a knowledge of our sickness before we shall be con- 
cerned to have the knowledge of our cure. 



16 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Fain would I know my utmost ill, 
And groan my nature^ s weight to feel : 
To feel the clouds that round me roll, 
The night that hangs upon my soul. 
The darkness of my carnal mind, 
My will perverse, my passions blind. 
Scattered o'er all the earth abroad. 
Immeasurably far from God. 

O sovereign Love, to thee I cry ! 
Give me thyself, or else I die ! 
Save me from death ; from hell set free ! 
Death, hell, are but the want of thee. 
Quickened by thy imparted flame ; 
Saved, when possessed of thee, I am: 
My life, my only heaven, thou art; 
O might I feel thee in my heart ! 

Sin is lawlessness — that is the meaning of ano- 
mia, wliich we render " the transgression of the law.'' 
The reign of law pervades the universe — a viola- 
tion of law, therefore, brings confusion and every 
evil work. Let the law of attraction, which binds 
together all the orbs, all the atoms, of the universe, 
be suspended for one moment on our planet, or any- 
other world, it will fall from its center, rush with 
centrifugal fury against other orbs, dashing itself 
and others to pieces, or it would be hurled into the 
void spaces of the universe, into the blackness of 
darkness forever — a fearful but a true picture of 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 17 

the fate of the sinner, cut off by sin from the great 
Center and Source of all light, and love, and life, 
and joy. "For the wages of sin is death" — the 
death that never dies ! 

It thus appears that sin is inherent in our nature, 
entering into the very warp and woof of our being ; 
it is inherited from our primogenitors, so that the 
morbid diathesis, or taint, has been transmitted 
from father to son through all generations ; it is 
total as to every faculty of the soul, and, except as 
counterworked by divine grace, every thought, word, 
and act of our lives ; it is univers*al, extending to 
all men, in every age, in every clime ; it is irreme- 
diable — nature is no medicatrix to cure the sin-sick 
soul — the sinner cannot pardon his own sin, or re- 
new his own heart; it is self-developing, so that 
"lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin" 
— that is, sin in the heart develops into sin in the 
life ; it is ruinous in its effects, for " sin when it is 
finished bringeth forth death." Can iany man who 
recognizes the Bible ^s the word of God — any man 
who looks abroad upon the state of the world, and 
who knows any thing of its history — any man who 
looks into his own heart and life^ — deny any one of 
these statements? Dr. Watts has not overdrawn 
the picture when he thus paraphrases the great 
2 



18 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

penitential psalm (hymn 381 of the Southern 
Methodist Hymn-book) : 

Lord, we are vile, conceived in sin, 
And born unholy and unclean ; 
Sprung from the man whose guilty fall 
Corrupts his race, and taints us all. 

Soon as we draw our infant breath. 
The seeds of sin grow up for death : 
Thy law demands a perfect heart. 
But we 're defiled in every part. 

Great Grod, create my heart anew. 
And form my spirit pure and true ; 
O make me wise betimes to see 
My danger and my remedy ! 

Behold, I fall before thy face ; 

My only refuge is thy grace : 

No outward forms can make me clean; 

The leprosy lies deep within. 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 19 



CHAPTER II. 
What has God Done for Our Salvation? 

Grace first contrived the way 

To save rebellious man; 
And all the steps that grace display 

"Which drew the wondrous plan. 

"TXT^E have seen that sin has left the sinner 
V V without help and without hope. " There 
is no health in us" — that is, no salvation in and 
of ourselves — absolutely none. Hence our first 
parents would not have been allowed to propagate 
their species in this fallen state, had not a divine 
remedy been provided for themselves and all their 
posterity. This is a matter of pure revelation. 

Laden with guilt, and full of fears, 

I fly to thee, my Lord ; 
And not a glimpse of hope appears, 

But in thy written word. 

The volume of nature imparts some knowledge 
of God's perfections, but affords us not even a 
glimpse of the way of salvation. Experience and 



20 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

observation show that we are sinners ; but the full 
conviction, as we have seen, is realized by "the 
law," applied by "the sin-convincing Spirit." The 
gospel, preintimated in the first promise (Gen. iii.), 
gradually disclosed through the Patriarchal and 
Jewish Dispensations, as recorded in the Old Tes- 
tament, and fully developed in ^ the Christian Dis- 
pensation, as recorded in the New Testament, shows 
us what God has done for our salvation. 

1. God contrived a plan of salvation. 

This language is adapted to human modes of 
speech. So of the works of nature, as they exhibit 
what would be design and contrivance in the works 
of men, we speak as if God designed and contrived 
them. Indeed, divines speak of a council of the 
Trinity, in regard to the creation of man : " Let us 
make man in our image, after our likeness." (Gen. 
i. 26.) 

Enthroned in everlasting state 

Ere time its race began, 
Who joined in council to create 
The dignity of man ! 

The Scriptures, indeed, use no such language in 
regard to the redemption of man ; and they do not 
warrant the unguarded language which some use 
when speaking of this mystery. We should never 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 21 

speak of the divine counsel, design, contrivance, 
purpose, plan, of salvation, in any other sense than 
as implying that infinite Avisdom provided salvation 
for the sinning race. 

Before God created man — even from all eternity 
— he knew that man ^vould fall and involve his 
posterity in the consequences of his transgression ; 
and he knew, too, what provision he would make 
for his salvation. This was no after-thought. 

Redemption by Christ is not an "optional'' or 
"expedientiar' contrivance. It is not as if there 
were many expedients proposed, any one of which 
might have answered the purpose, but after con- 
sultation this was decided to be, on the whole, the 
best, and so was adopted ! The Scriptures nowhere 
intimate that there could be any other "j)lan of 
redemption" — we can conceive of no othei. 

What if we trace the globe around, 
And search from Britain to Japan, 

There shall be no religion found 
So just to God, so safe for man. 

Indeed, there is none, there can be none, besides 
this, which is at all just to God or safe for man. 
The dupes of false religions may be saved, yet 
they will not be saved by their religions, but in 



22 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

spite of them — through the atonement of Him 
who tasted death for every man. " Neither is there 
salvation in any other ; for there is none other name 
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must 
be saved." (Acts iv. 12.) This is the uniform tes- 
timony of the Holy Scriptures. We cite two or 
three out of a hundred passages : " God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life" (John iii. 16). "In this was 
manifested the love of God toward us, because that 
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that 
we might live through him f "the Father sent the 
Son to be the Saviour of the world " (1 John iv. 
9, 14). 

2. The atonement of Christ is the meritorious cause 
of salvation. 

It is proper here to state that the word " atone- 
ment " is used in two senses in the Holy Scriptures. 
In the Old Testament it occurs frequently, and 
always in the sense of expiation, propitiation, sat- 
isfaction. It occurs but once in the New Testament 
(Kom. V. 11): "We joy in God, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the 
atonement" — where it means "reconciliation," and 
is so rendered in the margin. "Reconciliation" 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 23 

results from " atonement," in tlie sense of expiation, 
propitiation, satisfaction. In this sense the atone- 
ment of Christ, as we use the term, is the basis on 
which God is reconciled to sinners, and sinners to 
God — the former by his mercy, the latter through 
their faith. With these explanations, we may de- 
fine the Atonement in these terms : The Atonement 
is the satisfaction made to God for the sins of all 
mankind, original and actual, by the mediation of 
Christ, and especially by his passion and death, so 
that pardon might be granted to all, while the 
divine perfections are kept in harmony, the author- 
ity of the Sovereign is upheld, and the strongest 
motives are brought to bear upon sinners to lead 
them to repentance, to faith in Christ — the neces- 
sary conditions of pardon — and to a life of obedi- 
ence by the gracious aid of the Holy Spirit. 

The sin of Adam and his posterity is therefore 
the ground and occasion of the atonement of Christ. 

Sin is the curse and the calamity of the universe. 
"TheAvages of sin is death." There is the pen- 
alty. How can it be averted ? Justice might have 
inflicted it on the first sinning pair; but Mercy 
sues for pardon. Yet how can God be just, and 
the justifier of sinnei-s? How, in view of his own 
perfections, the interests of the universe, and the 



24 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

future fealty of the transgressors, can they be par- 
do/ied? 

There is not the slightest countenance in Script- 
ure to the fond conceit that the Son of God would 
have become incarnate, and lived and died on earth, 
if man had not sinned. His errand to our earth 
was one of salvation, and if man had not sinned he 
would not have needed salvation, and no Saviour 
would have been provided for him. If man had 
not fallen, the mediation of Christ would have been 
a grand impertinence — nay, an absolute impossi- 
bility. If God became incarnate — if in his as- 
sumed nature he lived, suffered, and died — nothing 
less than the redemption of a world of sinners lost 
can justify the amazing intervention. "But now 
once in the end of the world hath he appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 
Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.'' 
(Heb. ix. 26, 28.) He says himself, "The Son of 
man came to give his life a ransom for many;" 
" my blood is shed for many for the remission of 
sins." (Matt, xx. 28 ; xxvi. 28.) 

This, then, is the ground, or occasion, of the 
atonement — " To save a world of sinners lost." 

How finely has this been expressed by Charles 
Wesley : 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 25 

Father, whose everlasting love 
Thy only Son for sinners gave ; 

Whose grace to all did freely move, 
And sent him down the world to save ; 

Help us thy mercy to extol. 

Immense, unfathomed, unconfined; 

To praise the Lamb who died for all, 
The general Saviour of mankind. 

Thy undistinguishing regard 
Was cast on Adam's fallen race: 

For all thou hast in Christ prepared 
Sufficient, sovereign, saving grace. 

The world he suffered to redeem : 
For all he hath th' atonement made : 

For those that will not come to him, 
The ransom of his life was paid. 

Why, then, thou universal Love, 
Should any of thy grace despair? 

To all, to all, thy bowels move ; 
But straitened in our own we are. 

Arise, O God ! maintain thy cause ! 

The fullness of the Gentiles call: 
Lift up the standard of the cross. 

And all shall own thou diedst for all. 

In this wonderful economy God shines forth 
"full -orbed, in his whole round of rays com- 
plete." 



2t) THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

But when we view thy strange design 

To save rebellious worms, 
Where vengeance and compassion join 

In their divinest forms, 

Our thoughts are lost in reverent awe ; 

We love and we adore : 
The first archangel never saw 

So much of God before. 

Here the whole Deity is known, 

Nor dares a creature guess 
Which of the glories brighter slione. 

The justice or the grace. 

This is precisely in accordance with the teaching 
of Paul in that profound passage, Rom. iii. 21-26 : 
"But now the righteousness of God without the 
law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and 
the prophets ; even the righteousness of God which 
is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all 
them that believe; for there is no difference: for 
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
God; being justified freely by his grace through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : whom God 
hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in 
his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remis- 
sion of sins that are past, through the forbearance 
of God ; to declare, I say, at this time his righteous- 
ness: that he might be just and the justifier of 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 27 

him ^vhicll believeth in Jesus." So that other pro- 
found passage, 2 Cor. v. 14-21 : " For the love of 
Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, 
that if one died for all, then were all dead : and 
that he died for all, that they which live should 
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him 
which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore 
henceforth know we no man after the flesh ; yea, 
though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet 
now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore 
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old 
things are passed away ; behold, all things are be- 
come new. And all things are of God, who hath 
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath 
given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, 
that God was in Christ, reconciling the Avorld unto 
himself, not imputing their trespassess unto them ; 
and hath committed unto us the w^ord of reconcili- 
ation. Now^ then we are embassadors for Christ, as 
though God did beseech you by us : we pray you 
in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For 
he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no 
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of 
God in him." So, writing to the Ephesians, he 
says (Eph. v. 2) : " Christ also hath loved us, and 
hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice 



28 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

to God for a sweet-smelling savor." "And having 
made peace through the blood of his cross, by him 
to reconcile all things unto himself." (Col. i. 20.) 
" God our Saviour will have all men to be saved, 
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. 
For there is one God, and one mediator between 
God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave 
himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due 
time." " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of 
all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners." (1 Tim. ii. 3-6; i. 15.) 
The Epistle to the Hebrews is full of this doctrine. 

John speaks the same language: "My little 
children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin 
not ; and if any man sin, we have an advocate with 
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and he is 
the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, 
but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 
ii. 1, 2.) "Unto him that loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us 
kings and priests unto God and his Father ; to him 
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." 
(Kev. i. 5, 6.) 

Peter is equally explicit with the great apostles, 
Paul and John. He says: "Forasmuch as ye 
know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 29 

tilings, as silver and gold, from your vain conver- 
sation received by tradition from your fathers ; but 
Avith the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
without blemish and without spot : who verily was 
foreordained before the foundation of the world, 
but was manifest in these last times for you, who 
by him do believe in God, that raised him up from 
the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and 
hope might be in God." (1 Pet. i. 18-21.) "Who 
his own self bare our sins in his own body on the 
tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto 
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." 
(1 Pet. ii. 24. Compare Isa. liii. ; Acts viii. 30-35.) 
We need not multiply these testimonies; the 
Bible abounds with them — not only the New Tes- 
tament, but also the Old. Thus Peter, speaking 
of " the salvation of your souls," says : " Of which 
salvation the prophets have inquired and searched 
diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should 
come unto you : searching what, or what manner 
of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did 
signify, when it testified beforehand the sufierings 
of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto 
w^hom it was revealed that not unto themselves, 
but unto us they did minister the things which are 
now reported unto you by them that have preached 



30 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down 
from heaven; which things the angels desire to 
look tQto." (1 Pet. i. 10-12.) And what was the 
old sacrificial economy but a typical representation 
of this great mystery? This is well set forth in 
Cowper's beautiful hymn: 

Israel, in ancient days, 
Not only had a view 
Of Sinai in a blaze, 

But learned the gospel too , 
The types and figures were a glass 
In which they saw the Saviour's face. 

The paschal sacrifice. 

And blood-besprinkled door — 
Seen with enlightened eyes. 

And once applied with power — 
Would teach the need of other blood 
To reconcile the world to God. 

The lamb, the dove, set forth 

His perfect innocence. 
Whose blood of matchless wortli 
Should be the soul's defense; 
For he who can for sin atone 
Must have no failings of his own. 

The scape-goat on his head 

The people's trespass bore; 
And to the desert led. 

Was to be seen no more : 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 31 

In him our Surety seemed to say, 
"Behold, I bear your sins away." 

Dipped in his fellow's blood, 
The living bird went free : 
The type, well understood. 
Expressed the sinner's plea — • 
Described a guilty soul enlarged. 
And, by a Saviour's death, discharged. 

Jesus, I love to trace. 

Throughout the sacred page, 
The footsteps of thy grace, 
The same in every age! 
O grant that I may faithful be 
To clearer light vouchsafed to me ! 

When we thus consider what the Son of God — 
" the. Father's coeternal Son" — has done and is still 
doing to accomplish our salvation, we may well sing : 

Salvation, O the joyful sound ! 

'Tis pleasure to our ears: 
A sovereign balm for every wound, 

A cordial for our fears. 

Buried in sorroAV and in sin, 

At hell's dark door we lay; 
But we arise by grace divine 

To see a heavenly day. 

Salvation ! let the echo fly 

The spacious earth around. 
While all the armies of the sky 

Conspire to raise the sound. 



32 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

3. The work of the Holy Spirit is the efficacious 
cause of our salvation. 

The offices of the Holy Spirit, in the economy 
of salvation, are to be noticed in regard to the 
Saviour, and also in regard to the subjects of his 
salvation. 

(1) In regard to the Saviour, the offices of the 
Holy Spirit have special reference to the work 
which he performed in the incarnation, ministry, 
miracles, death, and resurrection of Christ. Thus 
the Catechism : " He formed the human nature of 
Christ in the womb of the Virgin, so that he was 
born without sin ; and he gave to him wisdom and 
grace without measure." The texts cited for this 
are the following : Luke i. 35 — " The Holy Ghost 
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest 
shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy 
Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called 
the Son of God." Luke ii. 52 — "And Jesus in- 
creased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
God and man." Isa. Ixi. 1 — "The Spirit of the 
Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath 
anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek ; 
he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to 
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of 
the prison to them that are bound." 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 33 

Thy power through Jesus' life displayed, 

Quite from the Virgin's womb, 
Dying, liis soul an offering made, 

And raised him from the tomb. 

lu one sense Christ was conceived of or by (for 
the preposition is the same in the Greek) the Virgin 
Mary, as she performed the actions of a mother, and 
"the Word was made," or assumed, "flesh." of her 
substance. But in another sense he "was conceived 
by the Holy Ghost." He was not made of the 
substance of the Spirit, "whose essence cannot be 
made," or communicated — so that the Spirit is not 
the Father of Christ, in the proper sense — though 
some of the ancients loosely so speak. He per- 
formed neither the act of creation nor generation ; 
but by an incomprehensible miracle superseded 
human paternity in order that the Offspring of the 
Virgin might be free from all taint of inherited 
depravity — his conception being immaculate. 

We cannot well suppose that the Holy Spirit left 
the Son of God from the time of his conception till 
he ascended into heaven ; but he was specially pres- 
ent with him, and exerted a peculiar influence on 
him, Tvhen at his baptism he descended like a dove, 
and lighted upon him, and when Jesus exercised 
his ministry, and performed his miracles. Tt was 



34 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

thus predicted : " The Spirit of the Lord shall rest 
upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understand- 
ing, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of 
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." (Isa. 
xi. 2.) " I have put my Spirit upon him : he shall 
bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." (Isa. xlii. 
1 ; Matt. xii. 18.) "I cast out devils," says Jesus, 
" by the Spirit of God." (Matt. xii. 28.) " For he 
whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God ; 
for he giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." 
(John iii. 34.) " Christ, through the eternal Spirit, 
offered himself without spot to God." (Heb. ix. 
14.) "He was quickened" — that is, raised from 
the dead— "by the Spirit." (1 Pet. iii. 18.) 

(2) But all this was anticipatory of " the dispen- 
sation of the Spirit." Though he was in the world, 
as a Divine Agent in the Economy of Redemption 
ever since the primeval promise was given, yet his 
mission by eminence did not commence till the day 
of Pentecost, when the New Dispensation was for- 
mally inaugurated. Thus John the Baptist: "I 
indeed baptize you with water ... he shall 
baptize you with the Holy Ghost.'' (Matt. iii. 11.) 
So Christ himself promised the gift of the Spirit, 
under the symbol of living water : " But this spake 
he of the Spirit which they that believe on him 



a HE AVAY OF SALVATION. 35 

should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet 
given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." 
(John vii. 39.) In his paschal discourses our Lord 
repeatedly promises the Holy Spirit to his followers : 
"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you for- 
ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world 
cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither 
knoweth him ; but ye know him : for he dwelleth 
with you, and shall be in you. . . . But the 
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, w^hom the 
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you 
all things, and bring all things to your remem- 
brance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'' (John 
xiv. 16, 17, 26.) " But when the Comforter is come, 
^vhom I will send unto you from the Father, even 
the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the 
Father, he shall testify of me." (John xv. 26.) 
" Xevertheless I tell you the truth ; It is expedient 
for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the 
Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, 
I will send him unto you. And when he is come, 
he will reprove the Avorld of sin, and of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment : of sin, because they believe 
not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my 
Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, l)e- 



86 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

cause the prince of this world is judged. I have 
yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of 
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth : for 
he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he 
shall hear, that shall he speak : and he will show 
you things to come. He shall glorify me : for he 
shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. 
All things that the Father hath are mine: there- 
fore said I, tliat he shall take of mine, and shall 
show it unto you." (John xvi. 7-15.) In these 
wonderful passages our Lord clearly shows that the 
Holy Spirit, in the economical sense, proceedeth 
from himself as well as from the Father. For 
though he does not say, "which proceedeth from 
the Father and me," because he was then person- 
ally present, and spoke of his own agency in the 
premises as future, yet the language, "I will send 
unto you from the Father " — " I will send him unto 
you " — "All things that the Father hath are mine ; 
therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and 
shall show it unto you" — expresses all that we 
mean by procession in the economical sense ; and 
any controversy on the subject is a fruitless war of 
words. 

The peculiar office of the Spirit belongs to the 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 37 

Ecouomical Procession. He proceeds from the 
Father and the Son to work out the great scheme 
of redemption; and he is thus that "other Com- 
forter/' or Paraclete, as the word should be ren- 
dered, for whose mission it was "expedient" that 
Christ should leave the world, and return to the 
Father. 

It was "expedient," as Christ, in his glorified 
humanity, has to act as our Advocate {Paraclete) 
with the Father (1 John ii. 1) — " our Friend before 
the throne of love." It was " expedient," too, be- 
cause if Christ had remained on the earth, he could 
not have been at more than one place at one and 
the same time, whereas all his followers would want 
to be Avith him all the time. But that " other Com- 
forter " (^Paraclete) being an infinite Spirit, without 
a corporeal appendage, can be everywhere at one 
and the same time. The bearing this has upon 
the preposterous dogma of the corporeal presence 
of Christ in "the tremendous sacrifice of the altar," 
and upon the fanatical dream of the premillennial 
Adventists, is obvious — but foreign from the pres- 
ent discussion. 

The word Parakletos occurs but five times in the 
Bible — once in 1. John ii. 1, where it refers to 
Christ, and is literally rendered "Advocate ;" four 



38 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

times in our Lord's pasclial discourses, where it is 
translated "Comforter/' and denotes the Holy 
Spirit. We must refer to our Commentary on 
John for the meaning and use of this word. The 
term Patron, comprehending the office of Counselor 
as well as Advocate, conveys the full idea, and sug- 
gests the peculiar economical work of the Holy 
Spirit. He manages every thing, is most intimately 
present everywhere in the Church, under this dis- 
pensation, which is distinctively called " the Dispen- 
sation of the Spirit." His preventing grace leads 
sinners 'to repentance, and faith in Christ — his re-' 
generating grace changes their hearts — his sancti- 
fying grace cleanses them from all sin — his com- 
forting grace bears witness with their spirits that 
they are the children of God, and that their persons 
and performances are accepted in the Beloved — his 
sustaining grace bears them up under all the trials 
of life, enables them to discharge all its duties, and 
to meet all its issues in the hour of death and in 
the day of judgment. 

God's image, which our sins destroy, 

Tliy grace restores below ; 
And truth, and holiness, and joy, 

From thee, their Fountain, flow. 

He calls, qualifies, and assists ministers of the gos- 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 39 

pel, and all others who are labormg with them, for 
the conversion of the world and the enlargement 
and edification of the Church — imparting spiritual 
gifts (not only miraculous endowments, as in the 
epostolic age, but ordinary ones, to the end of 
time), "dividing to every man severally as he 
will/' This is finely and fully developed in 1 Cor. 
xii., which should be carefully studied in connection 
with Rom. viii. 

As the witness of the Spirit is a most important 
doctrine, but one which is little understood — ex- 
plained away by mere formalists, and distorted by 
fanatics — we will give a plain, simple, scriptural 
presentation of it. 

Xo better information on this subject can be fur- 
nished than that which we have in the sermons of 
Wesley and Watson on the witness of the Holy 
Spirit and of our own spirit, and the masterly dis- 
cussion in " Watson's Institutes," to wdiich may be 
added our incomparable psalmody. But from time 
to time men want a restatement of dogmatic points, 
and we are not averse to their wishes. 

There is a scholastic, metaphysical method of 
handling this subject, which is not well adapted to 
the pulpit ; and there is a popular method, which 
we earnestly recommend and adopt. In the latter 



40 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

method we have more to do with particular texts of 
Scripture, lively metaphors, rhetorical illustrations, 
personal experiences, and the like. In the former 
method we have more to do with logic, abstract ar- 
gument, with as little metaphor as possible. "We 
cannot, indeed, do without metaphor. The very 
title by which the Third Person of the Trinity is 
known — "the Spirit" — is metaphorical, and it is 
highly expressive as such. No symbol can so well 
set forth his nature and operations as the atmos- 
pheric air. This element surrounds us, and enters 
into every place in the physical world, from which 
it is not debarred ; and so does the Holy Spirit in 
the moral world. His gracious influence is exerted 
upon all moral beings who do not willfully resist it. 
The Spirit operates upon unconscious infancy — 
upon childhood as it develops into intellectual and 
moral life — and upon matured humanity in all its 
stages ; influencing all, but forcing none ; and pro- 
portioning his influence to the concurrence of the 
subject. In the case of those who have divine 
revelation, the Spirit operates through and by the 
word — and, indeed, through and by the Church, 
sacraments, every thing that suggests religious 
truth to the mind; but he is not tied to any 
outward means, though he suspends many of his^ 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 41 

gracious operations upon our due employment of 
them. 

He operates upon the entire man — intellect, sen- 
sibilities, and will. If there is an instant concur- 
rence with his operations, our intellect receives the 
truth, our sensibilities are affected by it according 
to our personal relation to it, and our will makes 
choice of it, yields to it, puts it into practice. This 
takes place Avithin the realm of consciousness. The 
Holy Spirit is the prime mover. Without his influ- 
ence there could be no available thought, feeling, 
or volition, in regard to God and duty. When he 
operates upon our minds, and we concur with his op- 
erations, there is a consciousness of the fact realized 
by us — a mental impression of it is produced. This, 
in regard to its divine origination, is the witness of 
the Holy Spirit; in regard to the subjective apper- 
ception of it, the realization of it by the reflecting 
mind of the subject, it is the witness of our own 
spirit. The word witness, or testimony, is a foren- 
sic term. As the deposition of a witness makes us 
acquainted with facts or events of which we should 
be otherwise ignorant, so the influence of the Holy 
Spirit upon our minds gives us a sense of the divine 
favor, and excites correspondent feelings toward 
God ; hence it is figuratively styled the witness of 



42 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

the Spirit. The clearness of this testimony depends 
upon various circumstances, such as age, mental and 
moral development, the bias of education, peculiar- 
ity of temperament, and the like. Some persons 
are of a mercurial, some of a jovial, some of a sat- 
urnine, temperament — borrowing the terms of the 
old astrologers; hence some will be quick to dis- 
cover the tokens of divine favor — some will go on 
their way rejoicing, never doubting their acceptance 
in the Beloved — while others are slow of heart to 
believe, dull in their spiritual senses, and inclined 
to look at the dark side of every thing connected 
with their religious experience. Their faith is gen- 
uine, but it is mingled with doubt, and according 
to their faith so is the witness of their acceptance. 
The subject admits of a vast diversity — a gradation 
from the faint streak of the morning light spread 
upon the mountains, to the full blaze of sunshine — 
the meridian evidence which puts all doubt to flight. 
Hence the profound remarks of Richard Watson 
agree with the psychology of the subject, as well as 
actual experience. He says (Ins., ii., 24, p. 511) : 

This doctrine has been generally termed the doctrine of 
assurance; and perhaps the expressions of St. Paul, "the 
full assurance of faith/' and "the full assurance of hope/' 
may warrant the use of the word. But as there is a cur- 
rent and generally understood sense of this term among 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 43 

persons of the Calvinistic persuasion, implying tliat the 
assurance of our present acceptance and sonsliip is an as- 
surance of our final perseverance, and of our indefeasible 
title to heaven, the phrase, a comfortable persuasion or 
conviction of our justification and adoption, arising out of 
the Spirit's inward and direct testimony, is to be preferred ; 
for this has been held as an indubitable doctrine of holy 
writ by Christians Avho by no means receive the doctrine 
of assurance in the sense held by the followers of Calvin. 

There is also another reason for the sparing and cautious 
use of the term assurance, which is that it seems to imply, 
though not necessarily, the absence of all doubt, and shuts 
out all those lower degrees of persuasion which may exist 
in the experience of Christians. For, as our faith may not 
at first, or at all times, be equally strong, the testimony of 
the Spirit may have its degrees of strength, and our per- 
suasion or conviction be proportionately regulated. Yet 
if faith be genuine, God respects its weaker exercises, and 
encourages its growth, by affording measures of comfort 
and degrees of this testimony. JS^evertheless, while this is 
allowed, the fullness of this attainment is to be pressed 
upon every one that believes, according to the word of God : 
"Let us draw near,'' says St. Paul to all Christians, "with 
full assurance of faith." 

It may serve, also, to remove an objection sometimes 
made to the doctrine, and to correct an error which some- 
times pervades the statement of it, to observe that this 
assurance, persuasion, or conviction, whichever term be 
adopted, is not of the essence of justifying faith — that is, 
that justifying faith does not consist in the assurance that 
I am now forgiven through Christ. This would be ob- 
viously contradictory. For we must believe before we can 
be justified; much more before we can be assured, in any 



44 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

degree, that we are justified; and this persuasion, there- 
fore, follows justification, and is one of its results. We 
believe, in order to justification; but we cannot be per- 
suaded of our forgiveness in order to it, for the persuasion 
would be false. But though we must not only distinguish 
but separate this persuasion of our acceptance from the 
faith which justifies, we must not separate but only distin- 
guish it from, justification itself. With that come, as con- 
comitants, regeneration, adoption, and, as far as we have 
any information from Scripture, the "Spirit of adoption," 
though, as in all other cases, in various degrees of opera- 
tion. 

But, as we have already intimated, it is not expe- 
dient in our ordinary ministry to discuss this subject 
in a severely logical and metaphysical manner. 
Children, ignorant persons, people in general, can- 
not follow us in such discussions, and cannot be 
profited by them. It is well -enough to let them 
know that this great doctrine has a firm psycho- 
logical basis on which it rests ; but it must be pre- 
sented to them in the popular style. We may- 
adopt the organon, or method, by which we argue 
other questions, as, e, g., the resurrection of Christ, 
by presumptions, proofs, and demonstrations. Thus, 
in favor of our acquiring a knowledge of our filial 
relation to God, there are presumptions, as, for in- 
stance : 

We have an innate desire of certainty in regard 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 45 

to important things — and our relation to God and 
eternity is the most important of all. It is not 
absurd to suppose that God would furnish us the 
means of acquiring some knowledge in the prem- 
ises. 

There are intimations among the heathen. The 
most enlightened among them said, "We are all 
the offspring of God.'' The beautiful fable of 
Phaeton, who sought some token of his divine de- 
scent — the auguries which they practiced, and the 
oracles which they consulted, are fragments of 
primitive tradition in reference to this matter. 

The Jewish Scriptures, of course, contain the 
doctrine ; but even in the decadence of the Jewish 
religion their tradition concerning the scape-goat, 
that the scarlet thread around his neck turned 
white in token of the pardon of their sin (cf. Isa. 
i. 18), and the Bath Kol which they said spoke 
forth from the holy oracle, and assured them of 
the acceptance of their persons and offerings, were 
grotesque travesties of this doctrine. 

The papists ridicule it, yet they have vestiges of 
it in their priestly pardons, indulgences, and the 
like. When Eemigius, Bishop of Eheims, baptized 
Clovis, the King of the Franks, it is said that a 
milk-white dove, with a cruse of oil around its 



46 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

neck, was let down before the monarch, who was 
assured by this miracle that he was restored by bap- 
tism to primitive innocence, and was anointed with 
the unction of the Holy One. 

The "old divines" held this doctrine, though 
with some erroneous appendages, which constituted 
a serious embargo upon it — as the assurance of 
final perseverance and eternal salvation, which 
Bossuet urged as a capital objection to the doctrine, 
whereas it has nothing to do with the doctrine itself. 
But almost all Christians have some notion of it. 
The Fathers, especially Chrysostom and Augustin, 
were very pronounced in their belief of the witness 
of the Spirit — even mediaeval writers held it — with 
some distortion. We have found it in the writings 
of Roman Catholics and of those Protestants who, 
like the Romanists, ridicule it as fanaticism. In- 
deed, they cannot hold to Christian experience at 
all without involving both the work and the witness 
of the Spirit. 

These are strong presumptions in favor of the 
doctrine. 

Then there are numerous infallible proofs of it 
in the Holy Scriptures. It is inculcated in every 
way in which a doctrine can be inculcated, as, e. g., 
by dogmatic statement: "We know that we are of 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 47 

God." "Beloved, now are ^ve the sons of God." 
(1 Jolmv. 19; iii. 2.) 

By argument : thus it is argued to in Rom. v. 1- 
5: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 
by whom also we have access by faith into this 
grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the 
glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in 
tribulations also ; knowing that tribulation worketh 
patience; and patience, experience; and experi- 
ence, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed: be- 
cause the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 
by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Gal. 
iv. 6: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent fi^rth 
the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father." It is argued from in Rom. viii. 15-17 : 
" Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby 
we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth 
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, 
and joint-heirs with Christ." (Cf Eph. i. 13, 14.) 

It is inculcated by precept : Job xxii. 21 : "Ac- 
quaint now^ thyself with him, and be at peace; 
thereby good shall come unto thee." Heb. x. 22 : 
" Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assur- 
ance of faith." (Cf Heb. vi. 11.) 



48 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

By promise : Isa. liv. 13 : "All thy children shall 
be taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace 
of thy children/' (Cf. John vi. 45.) Jer. xxxi, 
34 : " They shall all know me, from the least of 
them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; 
for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remem- 
ber their sin no more." (Cf. Heb. viii. 8-12.) 
Luke i. 77: "To give knowledge of salvation unto 
his people by the remission of their sins." John 
vii. 17: "If any man will do his will" — is dis- 
posed, resolved, to do his will — "he shall know of 
the doctrine, whether it be of God." John xiv. 15- 
23: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. 
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you 
forever ; even the Spirit of truth ; whom the w^orld 
cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither 
knoweth him : but ye know him : for he dwelleth 
with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave 
you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little 
while, and the world seeth me no more : but ye see 
me : because I live, ye shall live also. At that day 
ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in 
pie, and I in you. He that hath my command- 
ments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: 
and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 49 

and I will love him, and will manifest myself to 
him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, 
how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, 
and not unto the world ? Jesus answered and said 
unto him. If a man love me, he will keep my words : 
and my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him." 

It is inculcated by threatening : 2 Thess. i. 7, 8 : 
"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking 
vengeance on them that know not God.'' 2 Pet. 
i. 9 : " But he that lacketh these things is blind, 
and cannot see afar ofi*, and hath forgotten that he 
was purged from his old sins." Those who will- 
fully remain ignorant of God, as a sin - forgiving 
God, cannot develop the fruit of the Spirit, which 
pertains to a holy life, and are therefore justly 
punishable for their ignorance. Thus in Bunyan's 
Pilgrim's Progress, "Ignorance" is denied admit- 
tance into the Celestial City because he could not 
produce his "certificate." 

It is inculcated by prayer, which is a most aflfect- 
ing and conclusive method of settling a question. 
Wise and good men — especially inspired men — 
would not pray for unattainable objects. Now, 
mark how Paul prays for the Ephesian Church, 
4 



50 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Eph. i. 15-18 ; iii. 14-19 : " Wherefore I also, after 
I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love 
unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, 
making mention of you in my prayers ; that the 
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and reve- 
lation in the knowledge of him : the eyes of your 
understanding being enlightened; that ye may 
know what is the hope of his calling, and what 
the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the 
saints." " For this cause I bow my knees unto the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the 
whole family in heaven and earth is named, that 
he would grant you, according to the riches of his 
glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit 
in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your 
hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted and grounded 
in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints 
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and 
height; and to know the love of Christ, which 
passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with 
all the fullness of God." And for the Colossians, 
Col. i. 9-14: *^For this cause we also, since the 
day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, 
and to desire that ye might be filled with the 
knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual 



THE WAY OF SALVATlUX. 51 

understanding ; that ye might walk worthy of the 
Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good 
work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; 
strengthened with all might according to his glo- 
rious power, unto all patience and long-suffering 
with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, 
which hath made us meet to be jDartakers of the 
inheritance of the saints in light: who hath deliv- 
ered us from the power of darkness, and hath 
translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son : in 
whom we have redemption through his blood, even 
the forgiveness of sins." Xo one will say that if 
those for ^vhom the apostle thus prayed put no bar 
to the answer, they did not receive that for Avhich 
the apostle prayed ; and surely no one can experi- 
ence such divine communications, and be destitute 
of the witnessing Spirit. (Cf Xum. vi. 24-27 ; 2 
Cor. xiii. 14; Phil. iv. 6, 7.) 

Then the doctrine is inculcated by examples : e.g., 
Abel, Enoch, Abraham, David, Job, Paul, John — 
all the holy men of ancient times, who held com- 
munion with God. 

But there are also demonstrations of this doc- 
trine. 

Any one may see by the pregnant presumptions 
and the cogent proofs adduced that the doctrine 



52 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

must be true, and yet he may have no demonstra- 
tive evidence of it in his own experience. But 
then every one may realize its truth by personal 
experience. In the nature of the case there is no 
reason why every man, whose mind is in a normal 
state, may not have the knowledge of salvation by 
the remission of sins. It is not the result of labored 
processes of ratiocination ; it is not dependent upon 
subtile analyses of the Spirit's occult operations 
upon the soul ; it is not the peculiar reward of a 
high state of sanctity, or of a long continuance in 
well-doing; but it is the consequence of faith in 
the atoning blood. "Because ye are sons" — 
though but newly begotten — " God hath sent forth 
the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, 
Abba, Father." 

No matter how dull the scholar that he 
Takes into his school, and gives him to see; 
A wonderful fashion of teaching he hath, 
And wise to salvation he makes us through faith. 

This is what thousands have realized, and daily 
realize, in their experience. 

How can a sinner know 

His sins on earth forgiven? 
How can my gracious Saviour show 

My name inscribed in heaven ! 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 53 

What we have felt and seen, 

With confidence we tell ; 
And publish to the sons of men 

The signs infallible. 

We who in Christ believe 

That he for us hath died, 
We all his unknown peace receive, 

And feel his blood applied. 

Exults our rising soul, 

Disburdened of her load, 
And swells unutterably full 

Of glory and of God. 

It is only necessary for us to add that as this 
privilege is for all, none should be satisfied without 
it. In this case, "to enjoy is to obey." Seek it 
earnestly and importunately by prayer and faith. 
But do not prescribe any particular method by 
which God shall reveal his pardoning love to your 
soul. Take not the peculiar experience of any for 
your standard. We have known many persons 
greatly distressed because the circumstances of 
their case were not like those of others. You have 
nothing to do with that. The experience of Mr. 
Fearing, .and Mr. Ready-to-halt, and Mr. Little- 
faith, w^as as genuine, though not for awhile as 
comfortable, as the experience of Hopeful and 
Faithful. You have nothing to do with times and 



54 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

places, and other circumstances. If you can say, 
" One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now 
I see," that is all-sufficient. We have sometimes 
been tempted to wish that some men could not point 
to the time and place when they first received the 
pledge of love, as they seemed disposed to live on 
past experience. "Do you now believe?'' Does 
the Spirit now bear witness with your spirit that 
you are a child of God? Eecollect, the witness 
does not consist in any outward manifestations, or 
peculiar ecstasies, or sudden translations from dark- 
ness to light — ^which may or may not accompany 
its first reception, or its renewed realization. If 
there is a settled conviction that God is mine and 
I am his — that I do believe in the Son of God, and 
have the witness in myself — though there may be 
no peculiar emotionality excited, it matters not. 
In some there is 

Th' o'erwhelming power of saving grace, 
The sight that veils the seraph's face — 

while in others there is. 

The speechless awe that dares not move, 
And all the silent heaven of love. 

But bear in mind that you cannot be happy, 
and so you cannot be holy, without it, in a less or 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 55 

greater degree. The fruit of the Spirit results from 
both his work and his witness. " But the fruit of 
the Si^irit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.'' We 
have first in the order of grace the work and wit- 
ness of the Holy Spirit, and then the work and 
witness of our own sj^irit, which really coalesce, as 
all is under the conduct of the Holy Spirit. "For 
our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, 
that in simj^licity and godly sincerity, not with 
fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have 
had our conversation in the world." " We know 
that we have passed from death unto life, because 
we love the brethren." "And hereby we know that 
we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts 
before him." "And every man that hath this hope 
in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." "But 
we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord." 

Having realized this blessing by faith, confirm it 
by obedience. For the witness of our adoption is 
confirmed by the seal of sanctification. You will 
not doubt that you are pardoned abundantly when 
you are sanctified wholly. (See Appendix, KoLe 1.) 



56 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 



CHAPTER III. 
"What Must I Do to be Saved? 

Look unto liim, ye nations ; own 

Your God, ye fallen race : 
Look, and be saved through faith alone, 

Be justified by grace. 

"T"TT"HAT must I do to be saved? is the most 
▼ V important question a poor sinner can ask. 
How important that the right answer should be 
given! Who can give it? 

1. "What saith the scripture? Abraham be- 
lieved God, and it was accounted unto him for 
righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the 
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But 
to him that worketh not, but believeth on him 
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for 
righteousness. Even as David also describeth the 
blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth 
righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are 
they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins 
are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord 
will not impute sin." " Therefore being justified by 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 57 

faith, Ave have peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ : by whom also we have access by faith 
into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope 
of the glory of God." (Eom.iv. 3-8; v. 1,2.) "For 
by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not 
of yourselves : it is the gift of God : not of works, 
lest any man should boast. For we are his work- 
manship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, 
which God hath before ordained that we should 
walk in them.'' (Eph. ii. 8-10.) " For Christ is the 
end of the law for righteousness to every one that 
believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness 
which is of the law, That the man which doeth those 
things shall live by them. But the righteousness 
which is of faith sjDeaketh on this wise. Say not in 
thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? (that is, 
to bring Christ down from above :) or, Who shall 
descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ 
again from the dead.) But what saith it? The 
word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy 
heart : that is, the word of faith, which we preach : 
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God 
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 
For with the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
ness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto 



58 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

salvation: For the scripture saith, Whosoever be- 
lieveth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is 
no diiFerence between the Jew and the Greek : for 
the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call 
upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the 
name of the Lord shall be saved." (Kom. x. 4- 
13.) And what says the Master? "Go ye into all 
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 
xvi. 15, 16.) *'And as Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be 
lifted up : that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into 
the world to condemn the world ; but that the world 
through him might be saved. He that believeth 
on him is not condemned : but he that believeth not 
is condemned already, because he hath not believed 
in the name of the only -begotten Son of God." 
(John iii. 14-18.) This is the uniform teaching of 
all evangelical Churches, in their Confessions, Cat- 
echisms, Liturgies, Hymnals, and other standards. 
(See Appendix, Note 2.) 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 59 

2. But it is objected that there are other passages 
of Scripture which lay down different terms of salva- 
tion, for example : " When the wicked man turneth 
away from his wickedness that he hath committed, 
and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall 
save his soul alive." (Ezek. xviii. 27.) "He hath 
showed thee, man, what is good ; and what doth 
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to 
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 
(Micah vi. 8.) "And behold a certain lawyer stood 
up, and tempted him, saying. Master, what shall I 
do to inherit eternal life ? He said unto him, What 
is written in the law? how readest thou? And he 
answering said. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy strength, and with, all thy mind ; and thy 
neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou 
hast answered right ; this do, and thou shalt live." 
(Luke X. 25-28.) " What doth it profit, my breth- 
ren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not 
works ? can faith save him ? If a brother or sister 
be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of 
you say unto them. Depart in peace, be ye warmed 
and filled ; notwithstanding ye give them not those 
things which are needful to the body ; what doth it 
profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead; 



60 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, 
and I have works : show me thy faith without thy 
works, and I will show thee my faith' by my works. 
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest 
well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But 
wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without 
works is dead? Was not Abraham our father jus- 
tified by works- when he had offered Isaac his son 
upon the altar ? Seest thou how faith wrought with 
his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abra- 
ham believed God, and it was imputed unto him 
for righteousness : and he was called the Friend of 
God. Ye see then how that by works a man is 
justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was 
not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she 
had received the messengers, and had sent them out 
another way ? For as the body without the spirit is 
dead, so faith without works is dead also." (James 
ii. 14-26.) "John did baptize in the wilderness, 
and preach the baptism of repentance for the re- 
mission of sins." (Mark i. 4.) *^ Except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God." (John iii. 5.) "Re- 
pent, and be baptized every one of you in the name 
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 61 

shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts ii. 
38.) " But after that the kindness and love of God 
our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but according to 
his mercy he saved us, by the waslring of regenera- 
tion, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he 
shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our 
Saviour ; that being justified by his grace, we should 
be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 
This is a faithful saying, and these things I will 
that thou affirm constantly, that they which have 
believed in God might be careful to maintain good 
^vorks. These things are good and profitable unto 
men." (Titus iii. 4-8.) "Christ also loved the 
Church, and gave himself for it; that he might 
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water 
by the word." (Eph. v. 25, 26.) "Know^ ye not 
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ were baptized into his death ? Therefore w^e 
are buried with him by baptism into death ; that 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in 
newness of life. For if we have been planted to- 
gether in the likeness of his death, we shall be also 
in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, 
that our old man is crucified with him, that the 



62 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we 
should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed 
from sin." (Rom. vi. 3-7.) "Baptism doth also 
now save us." (1 Pet. iii. 21.) 

To show the perfect harmony there is in the teach- 
ings of the word of God on this vital and all-impor- 
tant subject, three things are to be noted. 

First. When justification, or the remission of 
sins, is spoken of as salvation, it is always attrib- 
uted to faith as the instrument by which it is real- 
ized: it is accomplished by faith alone, though 
faith is not alone when it justifies. " 

A moment's reflection will show that faith alone 
justifies, or receives the grace of pardon— which is 
something done for us. Faith is the hand stretched 
out to " receive the reconciliation." What else can 
receive it? What but faith can appropriate the 
merits of Christ? 

But it is just as obvious that faith cannot be 
alone when it justifies. It is developed by prevent- 
ing grace, which w^ith our concurrence removes 
every obstacle to its exercise. There must be a 
disposition and determination to turn from every 
sin to God — steadfastly purposing to lead a new life 
— this is repentance ; and an impenitent sinner can- 
not believe with a heart unto righteousness. We 



THE AVAY OF SALVATION. 63 

repent that ^ve may believe. This implies prayer. 
No one ever yet had faith without praying for it. 

Author of faith, to thee I lift 

My Aveary, longing eyes : 
let me now receive that gift, 

My soul without it dies ! 

Then, how can any one exercise faith except by 
prayer? It is when we implore God, for Christ's 
sake, to blot out our transgressions that we obtain 
pardon. Of every penitent seeker of salvation it 
is said, "Behold he prayeth!" What does he say? 

Before my eyes of faith confessed 
Stand forth a slaughtered Lamb ; 

And wrap me in thy crimson vest, 
And tell me all thy name. 

Jehovah in thy person show, 

Jehovah crucified ! 
And then the pardoning God I know, 

And feel the blood applied. 

So of reading and hearing the word. There is no 
merit in ascertaining the way of salvation — the 
way to the cross — ^the way to the mercy-seat. How 
can that justify? "How^ shall they believe in him 
of whom they have not heard ? " But the hearing 
is in order to believing. 



64 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Stung by the scorpion^ sin, 

My poor expiring soul 
The bahny sound drinks in, 
And is at once made whole : 
See there my Lord upon the tree ! 
I hear, I feel he died for me. 

The bitten, dying Israelite would not, could not, 
look to the brazen serpent, unless lie knew that it 
was lifted up in order that he might look on it, and 
4|ve ; but it was only " when he beheld the serpent 
of brass he lived." That look evinced confidence 
in the appointed remedy, and according to his faith 
was it done unto him. So God extends the pardon 
of sin to the penitent sinner, and he reaches out the 
hand of faith, and receives it. That is what we 
mean when we say justification is by faith alone. 

Secondly. When we speak of salvation as com- 
prehending the remission of past sins, and also full, 
final, and everlasting deliverance from sin and its 
consequences — pardon, and holiness, and heaven — 
the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal 
glory — then all that is done for us, in us, and by us, 
is taken into account. 

We are justified by faith till the end of our lives 
— indeed, in a certain sense, at the day of judgment 
and to all eternity — 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 65 

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness 
My beauty are^ my glorious dress : 
^ Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, 
AVith joy shall I lift up my head. 

Bold shall I stand in thy great day. 
For who aught to my charge shall lay ? 
Fully absolved through these I am. 
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame. 

Distrust in Christ as the procurer of everlasting 
life would forfeit the life which he has procured for 
us. The faith which now saves us may be pre- 
cluded by the beatific vision, but the result of it 
will remain to all eternity. Thus faith is the sole 
instrument of our justification. 

Consequent upon its exercise we are adopted into 
the family of God, born again, and made new creat- 
ures in Christ Jesus. "As many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to them that believe on his name : which were 
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 12, 13.) 
^*For ye are all the children of God by faith in 
Christ Jesus." (Gal. iii. 26.) " God hath from the 
beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctifi- 
cation of the Spirit and belief of the truth." (2 
Thess. ii. 13.) 
5 



66 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

But regeneration is a work done not only for us, 
but in us, by the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is a 
work clone for us, in us, and by us — that is, by our 
cooperation with the sanctifying Spirit. " Sanctify 
yourselves, therefore, and be ye holy : for I am the 
Lord your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, 
and do them : I am the Lord which sanctify you." 
(Lev. XX. 7, 8.) "I will dwell in them, and walk 
in them ; and I will be their God, and they shall be 
my people. Wherefore come out from among them, 
and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not 
the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will 
be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having 
therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh 
and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." 
(2 Cor. vi. 16-vii. 1.) 

Common sense will teach every man that the 
moral law is binding upon every intelligence in the 
universe. How can its precepts be annulled or re- 
laxed? Is not every one, man or angel, bound to 
worship God, and God alone ? Can any one be ex- 
cused from honoring his parents? Will there ever 
be a time when the precepts against stealing, adul- 
tery, murder, perjury, covetousness, will be re- 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 67 

pealed? Will it not be the duty of every moral 
agent to love God ^vitli all his powers, and his 
neighbor as himself, to all eternity? 

Our Lord lays down the test which must stand 
forever : " The tree is known by his fruit. . . . 
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart 
bringeth forth good things : and an evil man out of 
the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I 
say unto you, That every idle word that men shall 
speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day 
of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be jus- 
tified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." 
(Matt. xii. 33-37.) 

With such a golden sentence as that from the 
great Master himself, it is astonishing that any 
should stumble at the assertion that, while in the 
sense of pardon we are justified by faith alone, in 
the sense of final salvation we are justified by works 
as well as by faith. "Blessed are they that do his 
commandments, that they may have right to the 
tree of life, and may enter in throuo;h the orates 
into the city." (Rev. xxii. 14.) 

It is not to be wondered at that Voltaire and 
other infidels say that James and Paul contradict 
one another, and so they reject both — because Paul 
says we are justified by faith without the works of 



68 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

law, while James says, "Ye see how that by works 
a man is justified, and not by faith only ; '' but it is 
amazing that any but infidels should realize any 
diflficulty in the premises. 

Luther rashly said that James contradicted Paul, 
and as Paul was right, James was wrong, and his 
Epistle is " an epistle of straw " — that is, worthless. 
Romanists and some Anglicans, and others, attempt 
to reconcile Paul with James, and not James with 
Paul. They say James speaks explicitly, Paul ob- 
scurely. Thus Bishop Bull says : " James explicitly 
asserts the doctrine of justification of sinful men 
before God by the works which proceed from faith 
in Christ; Paul simply denies that sinners can be 
justified by the works of obedience to the law of 
Moses, so that by faith he means the works which 
spring from faith in Christ." But what is this but 
justification by works? and justification, as Bull 
and his party teach, means the same thing in James 
as in Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. 
John Wesley seems to consider it only necessary 
to state Bull's theory in order to its refutation : " I 
read over and partly transcribed Bishop Bull's 
* Harmonica Apostolica." The position with which 
he sets out is this, 'that all good works, and not 
faith alone, are the necessary previous condition of 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 69 

justification,' or the forgiveness of our sins. But, 
in the middle of the treatise, he asserts that faith 
alone is the condition of justification; 'for faith,' 
says he, ' referred to justificatior^ means all inward 
and outward good works.' In the latter end he 
affirms 4hat there are two justifications; and that 
only inward good works necessarily precede the 
former, but both inward and outward the latter.' " 
But, as has been often shown, Paul means by justi- 
fication, the pardon of sin ; James uses the word in 
the sense of giving satisfactory proof that a pro- 
fessed believer is what he professes to be — ^the for- 
mer is by faith, the latter by works. Paul refers to 
the time when Abraham was justified, or accounted 
righteous, when before his circumcision he believed 
God, as it is recorded in Gen. xv. 5, 6 : "And he 
[the Lord] said unto him. So shall thy seed be ; and 
he believed in the Lord ; and he counted it to him 
for righteousness." (Cf. Eom. iv. ; Gal. iii.) But 
James refers to a diflferent transaction — one which 
took place some forty years after : " ^Vas not Abra- 
ham our father justified by works, when he had 
oflTered Isaac his son upon the altar?" (James ii. 
21.) Hence he adds, " Seest thou how faith wrought 
with his works, and by works was faith made per- 
fect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, 



70 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto 
him for righteousness ; and he was called the Friend 
of God.'' (James ii. 22, 23.) The offering of Isaac 
showed that his faith was not dead, but living and 
operative; the works which it produced demon- 
strated its vitality. Thus the statement as to his 
justification by faith, in Gen. xv., is fulfilled — that 
is, the aflSirmation is established, or confirmed, by 
the works recorded in Gen. xxii. In a word, James 
aflBrms that when Abraham so signally obeyed 
God in ofifering Isaac, the child of that promise 
which he believed, he gave undeniable evidence 
that his faith was genuine, and that he had been 
justified by it: his works attested the vitality of 
his faith, as they were the result of it. Instead of 
opposing this teaching of James, Paul corroborates 
it, when he says that the principle is of universal 
application, and will be recognized in the day of 
judgment. "For," says he, "not the hearers of 
the law are just before God, but the doers of the 
law shall be justified" — and he says this a little 
before his descant on justification by faith, Rom. 
ii. 13. Paul has as little use for a dead, inopera- 
tive faith — such as demons may have — as James 
himself, who describes such a vain and useless 
thing, and repudiates it. He had just as much 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 71 

use for justifying faith as Paul, because the faith 
Avhich briugs pardon bi'ings good works in its train ; 
it worketh by love, and purifieth the heart. Thus 
while we are justified — that is, acquire pardon of 
sin — by faith, it is, as the old divines say, by fiiith 
which "is never alone, though it alone justifieth — 
it is not soUtaria, although it is sola in this work." 
Thus it appears that there was no reason for Lu- 
ther's rejection of the Epistle of James as if it 
were opposed to the great fundamental Pauline 
doctrine of justification by faith alone, as there is 
a perfect harmony between the apostles. 

Thus we see that the duties of piety and morality 
must be performed as a prerequisite for heaven, 
and as the fruit of justification, or pardon, and re- 
generation, and faith, which is the instrument of 
both ; and that this is in ]3erfect consonance with 
the doctrine of gratuitous forgiveness on the condi- 
tion of faith without works. 

It has been asserted that Micah's theology op- 
poses the "blood theology" of Paul. It does no 
such thing. We need no other argument against 
the rash assertion than that contained in Wesley's 
hymn, suggested by the passage in question : 

Wlierewith, Lord, shall I draw near. 
And bow mvself before thv face? 



72 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

How in thy purer eyes appear? 
What shall I bring to gain thy grace? 

Will gifts delight the Lord most high? 

Will multiplied oblations please? 
Thousands of rams his favor buy? 

Or slaughtered hecatombs appease? 

Can these avert the wrath of God ? 

Can these wash out my guilty stain ? 
Rivers of oil and seas of blood, 

Alas ! they all must flow in vain. 

Whoe'er to thee themselves approve, 
Must take the path thys^f hast showed : 

Justice pursue, and mercy love, 

And humbly walk by faith with God. 

But though my life henceforth be thine, 
Present for past can ne'er atone: 

Though I to thee the whole resign, 
I only give thee back thine own. 

What have I then wherein to trust? 

I nothing have, I nothing am ; 
Excluded is my every boast ; 

My glory swallowed up in shame. 

Guilty I stand before thy face ; 

On me I feel thy wrath abide ; 
'T is just the sentence should take place, 

'T is just — but O, thy Son hath died ! 

Jesus, the Lamb of God, hath bled ; 
He bore our sins upon the tree; 



THE WAY OF SALVATIOX. 73 

Beneatli our curse he bowed his head : 
'Tis finished! he hath died for me! 

vSee wliere before tlie throne he stands, 
And pours the all-prevailing prayer! 

Points to his side, and lifts his hands, 
And shows that I am graven there ! 

He ever lives for me to pray ; 

He prays that I with him may reign : 
Amen, to what my Lord doth say ! 

Jesus, thou canst not pray in vain. 

Thirdly. When justification, or the remission of 
sins — regeneration, or the new birth — sanctification, 
or the cleansing from sin — and salvation, including 
all this, and eternal life as the consummation of all 
this— is attributed to baptism, any one might know 
that it is only as baptism, being a sacrament, is " an 
outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual 
grace — a means whereby we receive the same, and 
a pledge to assure us thereof" 

It is preposterous to confound the sign with the 
thing signified — the shadow with the substance — 
the portrait with the person it represents! You 
may give the name of the one to the other — every- 
body does that — it can scarcely be avoided. But 
can water, pure or mixed with other things, applied 
to an infant or an adult, by sprinkling, pouring, or 



7i THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

dipping, cleanse the soul from sin? Could ^'that 
circumcision which is outward in the flesh " save a 
Jew from sin ? Nay, it required that " circumcision 
which is of the heart in the spirit, and not in the 
letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." 
(Kom. ii. 28, 29.) 

By symbolizing the sanctifying and saving grace, 
baptism, not only at the time of its administration, 
but whenever it occurs to the mind, may and does 
assist in laying hold on the thing signified ; it helps 
our faith ; it is a means of grace, and a visible sign 
of the covenant, and a pledge on God's part of his 
mercy, and on our part of our obedience — "the an- 
swer of a good conscience toward God." It is no 
mere ceremony — no empty sign — but, like the other 
sacrament and the ministry of the word, an inval- 
uable " means of grace." We need such auxiliaries 
to our faith. Dr. Watts says : 

My Saviour God, mj sovereign Prince, 

Keigns far above the skies; 
But brings his graces down to sense, 

And helps my faith to rise. 

Mine eyes and ears shall bless his name. 

They read and hear his word ; 
My touch and taste shall do the same, 

When thev receive the Lord. 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 75 

Baptismal water is designed 

To seal his cleansing grace ; 
While at his feast of bread and wine 

He gives his saints a place. 

But not the waters of a flood 

Can make my flesh so clean 
As, by .his Spirit and his blood, 

He ^11 wash my soul from sin. 

Not choicest meats nor noblest wines 

So much my heart refresh 
As when my faith goes through the signs, 

And feeds upon his flesh. 

I love the Lord, who stoops so low, 

To give his word a seal ; 
But the rich grace his hands bestow 

Exceeds the figures still. 

By baptism we are admitted into the kingdom 
of God, externally considered — that is, the visible 
Church — as, by being born of the Sj)irit, we are 
admitted into the kingdom of God, spiritually con- 
sidered — the invisible Church, first on earth, and 
then in heaven. Hence all who gladly received 
the word in the apostles' days were instantly bap- 
tized, and admitted to all the privileges of "the 
holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints," 
and were bound by all its obligations. 

In no other sense can any one be saved by bap- 



76 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

tism. There is a short and easy way of settling 
this question 

Many, like the thief on the cross, and some mis- 
taken Christians, who decry the sacraments — as 
Quakers, for example^are saved without baptism. 

Many, like Cornelius and his friends, receive 
spiritual baptism, or the Holy Spirit, before bap- 
tism. (Acts X.) 

Many, like the pentecostal converts, and others 
baptized in infancy, received the Spirit after bap- 
tism. (Acts ii.) 

Many, like Simon Magus, are baptized, " born of 
water," but are never " born of the Spirit " — never 
saved. (Acts viii.) 

Not one in a thousand was ever spiritually re- 
generated in the act of baptism — at the moment of 
submitting to the rite — though it is well adapted to 
aid the subject in exercising repentance toward God, 
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Charles 
Wesley speaks of its occurring in the case of a 
Quaker whom he baptized. 

Those who know that baptism is required by 
Christ, and have the opportunity of complying 
with the requisition, but willfully and contuma- 
ciously reject it, cannot be saved. They "reject 
the counsel of God against themselves/' as did the 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 77 

Pharisees and lawyers who were not " baptized with 
the baptism of John/' (Luke vii. 29, 30.) 

It is the duty of every one who has not been 
baptized to submit without delay to the ordinance, 
because God requires it, and because they will be 
blessed by him in complying with the requisition. 
" Xow is the accepted time, behold now is the day 
of salvation.'' It is the duty of every sinner to 
repent to-day, to believe in Christ to-day, and so 
it is his duty to be baptized without delay. " He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but 
he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 
xvi. 16.) Baptism is the door of admission into the 
vdsible Church, connection with which is a positive 
duty and an exalted privilege. (See Appendix, 
Note 3.) 

3. How to comply with the conditions of salva- 
tion. 

Though the terms of salvation are so plainly laid 
down in the Scriptures, yet the anxious inquirer is 
frequently at a loss how to comply with them. 
Why is not the process so plain and positive as to 
insure speedy and certain results ? 

We say that it is. The Bible says so. " Good 
and upright is the Lord : therefore will he teach 
sinners in the way. The meek will he guide in 



78 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

judgment: and the meek will he teach his way." 
(Ps. XXV. 8, 9.) "It is written in the prophets, 
And they shall be all taught of God. Every man 
therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the 
Father, cometh unto me." "All that the Father 
giveth me shall [will] come to me ; and him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 
vi. 45, 37.) "If any man [resolve to] do his will, 
he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of 
God." (John vii. 17.) "As many as were or- 
dained [disposed] to eternal life believed." (Acts 
xiii. 48.) "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask 
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and up- 
braideth not; and it shall be given him." (James 
i. 5.) "Receive with meekness the ingrafted 
word, w^hich is able to save your souls." (James 
i. 21.) 

These passages assume that we are naturally ig- 
norant of the way of salvation, and that we cannot 
find it by our own unassisted powers. 

At the same time they imply that gracious aid is 
afforded to every man to put him in the way of 
salvation. The Holy Spirit sheds light on every 
understanding— he affects the sensibilities of every 
man — and he presents powerful considerations to 
the will of every man, to induce him (he cannot 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 79 

force him) to yield to those considerations. The 
Scriptures, moreover, inculcate concurrence with 
preventing grace, or that influence Avhich goes be- 
fore man's efforts, and which empowers him to 
comply with the divine requisition. 

The way of salvation is marked out in the 
Scriptures, and that so plainly that ^'the wayfaring 
men, though fools, shall not err therein" — they- 
cannot err, if they are meek — that is, docile, and 
willing to be led into the good and the right way. 
Those who neglect this divine and infallible direct- 
ory ought not to complain if they never find the 
way, but wander and stumble on the dark mount- 
ains of error and sin, and are lost forever. But an 
earnest, persevering, prayerful perusal of the Script- 
ures will certainly lead to a realization of their 
consistency, purity, power — in a word, their divine 
origin. 

A determination to repent will result in a reali- 
zation of the reasonableness and necessity of re- 
pentance, and a personal experience of it. Now, 
what is repentance? "True repentance is a grace 
of the Holy Spirit, whereby a sinner, from the 
sense of his sins and apprehension of the mercy of 
God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his 
sin turn from it to God, with full purpose of, and 



80 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

endeavors after, future obedience." Or, in more 
simple style. 

Repentance is to leave 

The sins I loved before, 
And show that I in earnest grieve 
By doing so no more. 

Now, is not this reasonable ? Is not this necessary 
^ in order to salvation ? " Surely it is meet to be said 
unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not 
offend any more ; that which I see not teach thou 
me : if I have done iniquity, I will do no more." 
(Job xxxiv. 31, 32.) "I thought on my ways, and 
turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, 
and delayed not to keep thy commandments." (Ps. 
cxix. 59, 60.) This is repentance ; it consists, rad- 
ically and essentially, in turning the mind from evil 
to good. In the nature of the case that will be ac- 
companied with sorrow for sin, But sorrow need 
not be prescribed to a traveler who has gone the 
wrong way, and has to retrace his steps to get into 
the right way : he will be sorry enough without 
prescribing any penance as a punishment for his 
sin, or a prerequisite for pardon. 

O that we all might now begin 

Our foolishness to mourn ! 
And turn at once from every sin, 

And to the Saviour turn, 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 81 

Give us ourselves and thee to know 

In this our gracious day : 
Eepentance unto life bestow, 

And take our sins away. 

With this agree the seven penitential psalms (vi., 
xxxii., xxxviii., li., eii., exxx., exliii.). When 
through the ministry of Nathan, and by the sin- 
convincing Spirit, the royal penitent poured out 
his soul in supplication for pardon, he knew very 
well there was no merit in his grief, yet how could 
he be otherwise than sorry for his sin? What he 
then sought was deliverance from it ; what he then 
determined was to sin no more. So with the prod- 
igal son. " When he came to himself,'' he was sorry 
enough; how could he do otherwise than bewail 
his wretched condition? But what would that 
avail if that were all? But that was not all. He 
resolved to return to his father's house, and he put 
his j)urpose into execution, and instantly returned 
— confessed his ill deserts, sued for forgiveness, and 
obtained it. So with the penitents on the day of 
Pentecost ; so with the awakened sinner in Rom. vii. 
A sincere and earnest concurrence with " the grace 
of the Holy Spirit" will never fail to cause any sin- 
ner to repent, nor will it stop till the tear of repent- 
ance drops from the eye of faith. Then there will be 
6 



82 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The seeing eye, the feeling sense, 
The mystic joys of penitence; 
The godly fear, the pleasing smart, 
The meltings of a broken heart ; 
The tears that tell your sins forgiven. 
The sighs that waft your souls to heaven. 

A willingness to trust in Christ for salvation will 
result in the assurance that we do thus trust in him, 
and are saved by him. . 

Thus was it with the eunuch. He yielded to the 
Holy Spirit, followed the direction of the evan- 
gelist, believed with all his heart that Jesus Christ 
is the Son of God, confessed him in baptism, and 
went on his way rejoicing. (Acts viii.) This is 
precisely what Paul says in Rom. x. : " With the 
heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with 
the mouth confession is made unto salvation ;'^ or, 
more literally, " In heart it is believed unto right- 
eousness, and by mouth it is confessed unto salva- 
tion." This is frequaitly paraphrased thus : " For 
with the heart — not the head — man believeth unto 
righteousness," etc. That is, the heart is considered, 
as in popular language, the affections, and is con- 
trasted with the head, as the intellect. The faith 
of the head is called a speculative, historical faith, 
which does not justify ; while the faith of the heart 
is considered an evangelical, saving faith. But 



THE WAY OF SALVATIOX. 83 

such a contrast is foreign from the scope of the 
passage. There is no contrast of any sort. There 
is a connection between the heart and the mouth. 
The heart, as is usual in Scripture, denotes the 
soul, spirit, mind — "the inward man" (Rom. vii. 
22 ; 2 Cor. iv. 16)—" the hidden man of the heart '' 
(1 Pet. iii. 4). The heart of a thing is the inward 
part of it ; so the heart of a man is that which is 
inside of his body — his spiritual nature. It com- 
prehends not merely the sensibilities, but also the 
intellect and the will. All three departments of 
our spiritual nature are concerned in believing. 
The intellect investigates the testimony concerning 
Jesus Christ, and accepts it ; the will chooses him, 
to the exclusion of all others, as a Saviour; and 
the affections concur with the choice. All this 
takes place within the man, and results in justifi- 
cation. But concurrent with this, or immediately 
consequent upon it, when circumstances admit, 
there is the outward act, which is called the confes- 
sion of the mouth — that is, the faith thus exercised 
inwardly must be professed outwardly. Without 
this none can be saved ; for Christ says : " Whoso- 
ever therefore shall confess me before men, him will 
I confess also before my Father which is in heaven ; 
but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will 



84 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." 
(Matt. X. 32, 33.) "The mouth" is put by synec- 
doche for any mode of professing our faith in Christ. 
It may have, however, primary reference to the 
profession made in baptism, which is called by em- 
inence "the profession of faith." Then there is 
"the good confession" made by the martyrs, who 
loved not their lives unto the death. They might 
have saved their lives by silence ; but they could 
not thus hide God's righteousness in their hearts, 
and retain it; they could not he Christians with- 
out professing to be Christians, cost what it might. 
Their continuance in a state of justification, and 
their ultimate acceptance — both of which are com- 
prehended in their "salvation" — depended on their 
consistent confession of Christ before men. This 
shows that there is an ethical character in faith, 
influencing both the inward and the outward man 
— the heart and the life. Thus we see the reason 
of that solemn assertion of our Lord, " He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that 
believeth not shall be damned." (Mark xvi. 16 ; 
cf. John iii. 18, 36; Acts ii. 37-47; xvi. 31-33; 1 
Pet. iii. 21.) Webster and Wilkinson: "Salvation 
regarded as righteousness — i. e., justification — is 
specifically attached to faith, according to principles 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 85 

previously laid down ; and justification regarded as 
salvation is attached to confession, or open outward 
acknowledgment of Christ, according to the princi- 
ples on which the last judgment will proceed, as 
stated. Matt. x. 32 ; Luke ix. 26 ; xii. 8, 9 ; Matt. 
XXV. 34-40.'' 

Thus the faith that justifies and saves is some- 
thing more than a mere assent to the proposition, 
"I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,'' 
and the confession of it in baptism ; it engages the 
intellect, will, and afiections, and then 

What we have felt and seen 
With confidence we tell. 

But where there is nothing but theory and formal 
expression of belief, there is no justification, no 
salvation. 

Thou know^st who only bows the knee. 
And who in heart approaches thee. 

Under the conduct of the Holy Spirit, the peni- 
tent is brought to the cross and the mercy-seat. 
Before his eyes Jesus Christ is evidently set forth 
crucified for sinners. He prays for faith — for 
power to believe on the Son of God — that power is 
imparted. He fixes his eyes on the cross ; he looks 
to Jesus ; his attention is focalized ; he cuts off* all 



86 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

straggling rays ; he is determined to know nothing 
save Jesus Christ and him crucified; he sufiers 
nothing to disturb, his mind, nothing to divert his 
attention, nothing to prevent his compliance with 
this one grand condition of justification : "Faith in 
Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and 
rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is ofiered 
to us in the gospel." Prayer is the vehicle of faith 
— a means of acquiring it — ^thus the general belief 
in God's mercy through Christ, which sweetly 
prompts us to pray, procures that faith by which 
we are justified. 

Author of faith, to tliee I cry — 

To thee, who wouldst not have me die, 

But know the truth and live: 
Open mine eyes to see thy face. 
Work in my heart the saving grace. 

The life eternal give. 

Shut up in unbelief I groan, 

And blindly serve a God unknown, 

Till thou the veil remove : 
The gift unspeakable impart. 
And write thy name upon my heart, 

And manifest thy love. 

I know the grace is only thine. 
The gift of faith is all divine ; 
But, if on thee we call, 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 87 

Thou wilt the benefit bestow, 
And give us hearts to feel and know 
That thou hast died for ALL. 

Thou bidd'st us knock and enter in, 
Come unto thee, and rest from sin. 

The blessing seek and find : 
Thou bidd'st us ask thy grace, and have ; 
Tliou canst, thou wouldst, this moment save 

Both me and all mankind. 

Be it according ta thy word ; 

Now let me find my pardoning Lord ; 

Let what I ask be given : 
The bar of imbelief remove, 
Open the door of faith and love. 

And take me into heaven I 

Any one who sincerely offers that prayer is not 
far from the kingdom of God. We would hardly 
say, as Mr. Wesley did at one time, that at this 
point a man cannot help believing, as we have seen 
that the decision of the will completes the act of 
faith. But when the soul, like the photographist's 
plat^, is prepared to receive the impression, and is 
kept before the object — that is, the Lord Jesus 
Christ — his image is formed upon the soul, and he 
that thus belie vet h on the Son of God hath the ^vit- 
ness in himself. This is the consummation of the 
believing process. 



88 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Lord, give me faith — he hears — what grace is this ! 

Dry up thy tears, my soul, and cease to grieve ; 
He shows me what he did and who he is — 

I must, I can, I will, I do believe ! 

4. A disposition to do the whole will of God will 
result in the assurance that we are saved by him. 

Thus Solomon says, "The path of the just is as 
the shining light, that shineth more and more unto 
the perfect day." (Prov. iv. 18.) And Hosea says, 
" Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the 
Lord ; '' or it may be rendered in the imperative, 
" Then let us know, let us follow on to know the 
Lord." (Hos. vi. 3.) 

This is what is significantly called experimental 
religion. "We leave the inquirer to make the ex- 
periment for himself, having no misgiving as to 
the result. We simply remark that the doubts of 
men are occasioned by their ignorance, indolence, 
pride, and prejudice, which indispose them to do the 
will of God. It follows that men are justly con- 
demned for their unbelief, because it has in it the 
essence of disobedience, of which it is both cause 
and effect. "He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be 
damned." (Mark xvi. 16.) 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE I. (Page 55.) 



THE early Fathers of the Church, as far as we 
can ascertain from their writings, held firmly 
to the witness of the Spirit. But as sacerdotalism 
crept into the Church, the doctrine became greatly 
obscured. Thus Gregory the Great, who is called 
"the last good and the first bad Pope," began to 
entertain the gloomy notion that Christians must 
remain in a state of fear and anxiety, and go mourn- 
ing all their days. 

Gregoria, a lady of the imperial court, wrote to 
him that she could have no peace till he assured her 
of her pardon by a special revelation. The answer 
he gave her was very remarkable. He said that 
what she asked for was both difiicult and unprofit- 
able — difiicult, because he was unworthy of such a 
revelation, and unprofitable, because it was not till 
the last day of her life, w^hen no more time was left 
to weep over her sins, she ought to have the assur- 
ance they were forgiven. Till then, distrustful of 
herself, she should always fear on account of her 
sins, and seek to cleanse herself from them by daily 

(89) 



90 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

tears. What advice from the chief minister of the 
Church! What an illustration of the dogma of 
the infallibility of the Pope! And yet some at- 
tribute to him the authorship of the hymn " Veni, 
Creator Spiritus/' which teaches a very different 
doctrine. Whether he wrote it, or Charlemagne, 
or Ambrose, it has been in use for a thousand years, 
and is highly prized alike by Romish and Reformed 
Communions. 

Veni, Cbeator Spiritus. 

Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
And lighten with celestial fire. 
Thou the anointing Spirit art. 
Who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart. 
Thy blessed unction from above 
Is comfort, life, and fire of love. 
Enable with perpetual light 
The dullness of our blinded sight. 
Anoint and cheer our soiled face 
With the abundance of thy grace. 
Keep far our foes, give peace at home, 
Where thou art guide no ill can come. 
Teach us to know the Father, Son, 
And thee of both to be but one. 
That through the ages all along. 
This may be our endless song : 
Praise to thy eternal merit. 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

There is another hymn to the Holy Spirit, attrib- 
uted to Robert II., King of France, in the eleventh 



APPENDIX. 91 

century, not unlike the foregoing ; it sets forth the 

same views : 

Yeni, Sancte Spiritus. 

Holy Spirit, come, we pray. 

Come from heaven and shed the ray 

Of thy light divine. 
Come, thou Father of the poor. 
Giver from a boundless store, 

Light of hearts, O shine ! 

Matchless Comforter in woe, 
Sweetest Guest the soul can know, 

Living waters blest. 
When we weep, our solace sweet, 
Coolest shade in summer heat, 

In our labor rest. 

Holy and most blessed Liglit, 
Make our inmost spirits bright 

With thy radiance mild ; 
For without thy sacred powers, 
Nothing can we own of ours, 

Nothing undefiled. 

What is arid fresh bedew. 
What is sordid cleanse anew, 

Balm on wounded pour. 
Wliat is rigid gently bend. 
On the cold thy fervor send. 

What has strayed restore. 

To thine own in every jdace 
Give the sacred seven-fold grace, 
Give thv faithful this. 



92 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Give to virtue its reward, 
Safe and peaceful end afford, 
Give eternal bliss. 

And there is another, attributed to Adam of St, 

Victor : 

Veni, Creator Spiritus. 

Come, Creator-Spirit high. 

Re-creating ever; 
Given and giving from the sky. 

Thou the Gift and Giver. 
Thou the Law within us writ. 
Finger thou tliat writeth it. 

Inspired and Inspirer ! 

With thy seven-fold graces good 

Seven-fold gifts be given. 
For seven-fold beatitude 

And petitions seven. 
Thou the pure, unstained snow. 
That shall never sullied flow ; 
Fire that burns not though it glow ; 
Wrestler ne'er defeat to know, 

Giving words of wisdom. 

Kindle thou thyself in us. 

Thou both Light and Fire ; 
Thou thyself still into us. 

Breath of Life, inspire ! 
Thou the Ray, and thou the Sun, 
Sent and Sender, thee we own ; 
Of the blessed Three in One, 
Thee, we suppliant, call upon. 

Save us now and ever. 



APPENDIX. • 93 

The "old divines," prelatical, Puritan, Non-con- 
formist, all held this doctrine, as may be seen in 
their Oonfes^ons, Catechisms, Sermons, and Hymns 
— however some of them obscured it by inconsist- 
ent utterances, gloomy views, drawn from their own 
experience. Hear Dr. Watts : 

The Witnessing and Sealing Spirit. 

AVliy should the children of a King 
Go mournmg all their days?. 

Great Comforter ! descend and bring- 
Some tokens of thy grace. 

Dost thou not dwell in all the saints. 
And seal the heirs of heaven? 

When wilt thou banish my complaints, 
And show my sins forgiven? 

Assure my conscience of her part 

In the Redeemer's blood ; 
And bear thy witness with my heart 

That I am born of God. 

Thou art the earnest of his love. 

The pledge of joys to come ; 
And thy soft wings, celestial Dove, 

Will safe convey me home. 

Hear Dr. Doddridge : 

Witness of Adoption. 

Sovereign of all the worlds on high. 

Allow my humble claim ; 
Nor, while a worm would raise its head, 

Disdain a Father's name. 



94 THE AVAY OF SALVATION. 

"My Father God !" how sweet the sound ! 
How tender and how dear ! 
Not all the melody of heaven 
Could so delight the ear. 

V Come, sacred Spirit, seal the name 

On my expanding heart ; 
And show that in Jehovah's grace 
I share a filial part. 

Cheered by a signal so divine, 

U«i wavering I believe : 
Thou know' St I "Abba, Father," cry; 

Nor can the sign deceive. 

Cowper thus translates a hymn of Madame Guion : 

Bliss of Adoption. 

How happy are the new-born race. 
Partakers of adopting grace ! 

How pure the bliss they share ! 
Hid from the world and all its eyes, 
Within their heart the blessing lies, 

And conscience feels it there. 

The moment we believe, 'tis ours; 
And if we love with all our powers 

The God from whom it came. 
And if we serve with heart sincere, 
'T is still discernible and clear. 

An undisputed claim. 

But ah ! if foul and willful sin 
Stain and dishonor us within. 
Farewell the joy we knew: 



APPENDIX. 95 

Again the slaves of nature's sway, 
In labyrinths of our own we stray, 
Without a guide or clue. 

The chaste and pure, who fear to grieve 
The gracious Spirit they receive, 

His work distinctly trace. 
And strong in undissembling love. 
Boldly assert and clearly prove. 

Their hearts his dwelling-place. 

O Messenger of dear delight, 

Whose voice dispels the deepest night. 

Sweet peace-proclaiming Dove ! 
With thee at hand to soothe our pains, 
Ko wish unsatisfied remains, 

Ko task,' but that of love. 

Charles Wesley is full of it. It is said that he 
wrote this fine hymn for his mother, when she was 
seeking a clear sense of her acceptance by the wit- 
nessing Spirit, which she obtained : 

For the Witxessixg Spirit. 

Thou great mysterious God unknown, 
Whose love liath gently led me on. 

E'en from my infant days; 
Mine inmost soul expose to view. 
And tell me if I ever knew 

Thy justifying grace. 

If I have only known thy fear, 
And folloAved, with a heart sincere, 
Thy drawings from above. 



96 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Now, now the farther grace bestow, 
And let my sprinkled conscience know 
Thy sweet forgiving love. 

Short of thy love I would not stop, 
A stranger to the gospel hope, 

The sense of sin forgiven : 
I would not, Lord, my soul deceive, 
Without the inward Witness live. 

That antepast of heaven. 

If now the Witness were in me. 
Would he not testify of thee, 

In Jesus reconciled? 
And should I not with faith draw nigli. 
And boldly, Abba, Father, cry, 

And know myself thy child? 

Whate'er obstructs thy pardoning love— 
Or sin, or righteousness — remove. 

Thy glory to display : 
My heart of unbelief convince. 
And now absolve me from my sins. 

And take them all away. 

Father, in me reveal thy Son, 

And to my inmost soul make known 

How merciful thou art : 
The secret of thy love reveal. 
And by thy hallowing Spirit dwell 

Forever in my heart! 

The hymn, "How can a sinner know?" is ex- 
tracted, with a change of meter, from the first of a 



APPENDIX. 97 

series of five hymns, which set forth this blessed 
state of grace as infinitely desirable, certainly at- 
tainable, and not to be questioned because blind 
formalists denounce those who profess it as hypo- 
crites and fanatics. It may gratify a laudable 
curiosity, and strengthen a weak faith, to repro- 
duce these remarkable lyrics — entitled by Wesley, 

The Marks of Faith. 
I. 

How can a sinner know 

His sins on earth forgiven? 
How can my Saviour show 

My name inscribed in heaven? 
What we ourselves have felt and seen 

With confidence we tell. 
And publish to the sons of men 

The signs infallible. 

We who in Christ believe 

That he for us hath died. 
His unknown peace receive, 

And feel his blood applied : 
Exults for joy our rising soul, 

Disburdened of her load. 
And swells unutterably full 

Of glory and of God. 

His love, surpassing far 

The love of all beneath. 
We find within, and dare 

The pointless darts of death. 



98 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Stronger than sin, or death, or hell 
The mystic power we prove, 

And conquerors of the world we dwell 
In heaven, who dwell in love. 

The pledge of future bliss 

He now to us imparts ; 
His gracious Spirit is 

The earnest in our hearts. 
We antedate the joys above, 

We taste the eternal powers, 
And know that all those heights of love 

And all those heavens are ours. 

Till he our life reveal, 

We rest in Christ secure ; 
His Spirit is the seal 

Which made our pardon sure : 
Our sins his blood hath blotted out, 

And signed our soul's release; 
And can we of his favor doubt, 

Whose blood declares us his ? 

We by his Spirit prove, 

And know the things of God, 
The things which of his love 

He hath on us bestowed : 
Our God to us his Spirit gave, 

And dwells in us, we know, 
The Witness in ourselves we have, 

And all his fruits we show. 

The meek and lowly heart. 
Which in our Saviour was, 



APPENDIX. 99 

He doth to us impart, 

And signs us with his cross: 
Our nature's course is turned, our mine* 

Transformed in all its powers. 
And both the witnesses are joined, 

The Spirit of God with ours. 

Whate'er our pardoning Lord 

Commands we gladly do, 
And, guided by his word. 

We all his steps pursue: 
His glory is our sole design ; 

We live our God to please. 
And rise with filial fear divine 

To perfect holiness. 

II. 

How shall a slave, released 

From his oppressive chain, 
Distinguish ease and rest 

From weariness and pain? 
Can he, his burden borne away, 

Infallibly perceive ? 
Or I, before the judgment-day, 

My pardoned sin believe? 

Kedeemed from all his woes, 

Out of his dungeon freed. 
Ask, how the prisoner knows 

That he is free indeed ! 
How can he tell the gloom of niglit 

From the meridian blaze, 
Or I discern the glorious light 

That streams from Jesas' face? 



100 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The gasping patient lies 

In agony of pain ; 
But see him light arise, 

Kestored to health again ! 
And doth he certainly receive 

The knowledge of his cure? 
And am I conscious that I live ? 

And is my pardon sure? 

A wretch, for years confined 

To hopeless misery. 
The happy change must find, 

From all his pain set free; 
And must I not the difiference know 

Of joy and anxious grief, 
Of grace, and sin, of weal, and woe, 

Of faith, and unbelief? 

Yes, Lord, I now perceive. 

And bless thee for the grace 
Through which redeemed I live 

To see thy smiling face : 
Alive I am, who once was dead, 

And freely justified; 
I know thy blood for me was shed, 

I feel it now applied. 

By sin no longer bound. 

The prisoner is set free ; 
The lost again is found 

In paradise, in thee : 
In darkness, chains, and death I was, 

But lo ! to life restored. 
Into thy wondrous light I pass, 

The freeman of the Lord. 



APPENDIX. 101 

In comfort, power, and peace, 

Thy favor, Lord, I prove, 
In faith, and joy's increase. 

And self-abasing love : 
Thou dost my pardoned sin reveal. 

My life and heart renew ; 
The pledge, the witness, and the seal 

Confirm the record true. 

The Spirit of my God 

Hath certified him mine. 
And all the tokens showed 

Infallible, divine: 
Hereby the pardoned sinner knows 

His sins on earth forgiven, 
And thus my faithful Saviour shows 

My name inscribed in heaven. 

III. 

Ah ! foolish world, forbear 

Thine unavailing pain, 
"Not needlessly declare 

Our hope and labor vain: 
Tell us no more, we cannot know 

On earth the heavenly powers. 
Or taste the glorious bliss below. 

Or feel that God is ours. 

So ignorant of God, 

In sin brought up and born, 
Ye fools, be not so proud : 

Suspend your idle scorn : 
For us who have received our sight 

Ye fain would judges be, 



102 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

And make us think there is no light, 
Because you cannot see. 

The same in your esteem, 

Falsehood and truth ye join. 
The wild pretender's dream 

And real work divine : 
Between the substance and the show 

No difference you can find ; 
For colors all, full well we know, 

Are equal to the blind. 

Wherefore from us depart. 

And to each other tell 
"We cannot on our heart 

The written pardon feel : '' 
A stranger to the living bread, 

Ye may beguile and cheat. 
But us you never can persuade 

That honey is not sweet. 

IV. 

Who of the great or wise 

Hath our report believed ? 
Alas ! they close their eyes, 

Nor will be undeceived ; 
The world cry out, in needless fright, 

"Your rash attempt forbear 
To lift us to presumption's height. 

Or YJlunge us in despair. 

Whoever seek to know 

Their sins on earth forgiven. 

Or sink in hopeless woe, 
Or rise to madness driven." 



APPENDIX. 103 

They safely choose the middle way, 

Aware of each extreme ; 
The only prudent men are they, 

And wisdom dies with them. 

The sayings of our Lord 

Their folly dares despise. 
Above the written word, 

To their own ruin wise : 
The written word, by which we steer 

From all mistake secure. 
It bids us make our calling here 

And our election sure. 

It bids the Aveary come, 

And find in Christ their rest. 
Invites the wanderer home 

To his Redeemer's breast: 
It stirs us up to knock, and pray. 

And seek the pardoning God, 
Till Jesus take our sins away. 

And wash us in his blood. 

It proffers happiness 

To all who dare believe, 
And promises a peace 

Which man can never give ; 
With full assurance^of belief, 

Commands us to draw near, 
And taste the joy that casts out grief, 

The love that casts out fear. 

Water of life divine 
It bids us freely take. 



104 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

And mystic milk and wine 

For Jesus' only sake : 
The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, 

To all who ask is given — 
That seal of our salvation here, 

That antepast of heaven. 

But still the world refuse 

A heaven begun below, 
And vainly fear f abuse 

The grace they never know : 
The grace their pride will not receive 

They impiously deny, 
And in their sins securely live, 

And desperately die. 

V. 

Yet hear, ye souls that cleave 

To earth and misery, 
The joyful news receive. 

And yield to be set free ; 
Redeemed from pride and guilty shame, 

The grace of Jesus prove. 
The virtue of your Saviour's name, 

The humbling power of love. 

His blood, by faith applied. 

Shall wash you white as snow. 
And all the justified 

Themselves and Jesus know ; 
Who honor God, themselves despise 

With deep humility, 
And none so vile in their own eyes 

As those that Jesus see. 



APPENDIX. 105 

He never will insnare, 

Or by his gifts destroy 
The objects of his care, 

The vessels of his joy: 
His mercy shall, with lowly fear, 

Your faithful souls abase, 
And make you in the dust revere 

The pardoning God of grace. 

His truth, and love, and power, 

Shall his own gifts maintain ; 
But may ye not implore 

The Saviour's grace in vain? 
What if ye seek, and never find, 

The pardon in his blood? 
What -if the Saviour of mankind 

Be neither just nor good? 

Hath he not spoke the word, 

"Who ask shall all receive?" 
Believe our faithful Lord, 

Ye abject souls, believe ! 
The hellish doubt reject, disclaim. 

And on our God rely. 
Our God continues still the same, 

Nor can himself deny. 

We now affix our seal 

That God is good and true ; 
His faithful love we feel. 

And ye may feel it too 
We know ye all the grace may take, 

Ye all the truth may prove. 
And twice ten thousand souls we stake 

On Jesus' faithful love. 



106 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The great classical text for this doctrine is Rom. 
viii. 15, 16, which may be translated thus: "For 
ye received not the Spirit of bondage again unto 
fear; but ye received the Spirit of adoption, in 
whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself 
testifieth with our spirit, that we are children of 
God." A brief analysis and exposition of this 
much-abused and much-neglected passage may not 
be impertinent in this place. The conjunction 
"for" is confirmatory of the preceding statement 
that " as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are the sons of God." The language, "ye received 
not" — the aorist, not the perfect, tense — refers to 
the time of their regeneration. "The Spirit of 
bondage again unto fear" does not mean a servile 
spirit, as if they had once received a spwit of that 
sort, or as if the Holy Spirit had been received in 
that capacity. The word palin, " again," or back, 
is not to be construed thus, "received again the 
Spirit of bondage;" but it refers to the state in 
which they were before regeneration, as described 
in oliapter vii. — a condition of slavish fear, opposed 
to the state of filial confidence. The apostle means. 
For the Spirit you received at your conversion did 
not produce in you the slavish fear you previously 
experienced ; but the Spirit you then received was 
that of adoption, in the possession of which you 
addressed God as your loving Father. The Holy 



APPENDIX. 107 

Spirit is called "the Spirit of adoption" from the 
effects which he produces. Through his influence 
we believe in Christ, and we are all the children of 
God by faith in Christ Jesus. 

There is danger of pedantry in the use made 
of these metaphors : whether the word " adoption " 
should be used, or "sonship" — whether the refer- 
ence be to the Koman law, which made all children, 
including the adopted, equal in regard to privileges, 
or to the Jewish law, which allowed the first-born 
a double inheritance — these and other nice points 
were not probably had in view by the apostle. As 
children are like their parents, as they have many 
tokens of their filiation, and as many privileges as 
well as obligations belong to the filial relation, so 
it is with believers in Christ. He is their elder 
Brother, and through him they acquire the adop- 
tion of sons — he being " the first-born among many 
brethren." As justification stands related to sanc- 
tification, so adoption stands related to regeneration 
— ilie relative work in each case corresponding to the 
real work — our character is conformed to our rela- 
tion. jSTone can have the adoption of sons without 
possessing a filial nature. " Ye must be born again." 

When Paul says, "in whom we cry, Abba, Fa- 
ther," he means in the Spirit, as the divine atmos- 
phere that gives us spiritual life, enabling us to 
breathe forth the most ardent desires. C£ verses 



108 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

26, 27. Crying is the expression of earnest prayer, 
as in the Psalms. (Ps. cvii. 6, and elsewhere; Gal. 
iv. 6.) 

Abba, Father is found in Mark xiv. 36 and Gal. 
iv. 6 — nowhere else. Abba is Chaldaic for father. 
Ho, Pater — Father — is vocative, according to He- 
brew usage. Our Lord used Abba in his agony ; 
he had been accustomed to it, doubtless, from his 
infancy — it sounds more tender and endearing — 
more childlike — than pater. Ab and Am — Hebrew 
for father and mother — are the simplest labial 
sounds, easy of utterance to an infant — like papa 
and mamma. Selden's allusion to the Talmud, 
which says servants were not allowed to call the 
master Abba, but only Ab, seems far-fetched. The 
double name may have reference to childish repe- 
tition ; but then it would seem that Abba should be 
repeated. Some think the Greek word is added to 
explain the Chaldaic; but it is represented as a 
part of the exclamation. Augustin, Calvin, and 
others, say the bilingual form shows that both Jews 
and Gentiles enjoy the common privilege. But 
then Christ used the bilingual form in the garden 
— surely not for these reasons. Euchologies are 
not to be governed by ordinary rules — they are the 
language of passion. The English Liturgy abounds 
with bilingual forms and passionate expressions. 
Luther renders, "Dear Father." Compare the 



APPENDIX. 109 

Hebrew Abl, "My Father" (2 Kings ii. 12; Jer. 
iii. 4). The Syriac renders, "My Father." 

Olshausen is excellent here : " The Spirit of bond- 
age and the Spirit of adoption are not to be taken 
as though the apostle assumed a double pneuma, or 
a twofold form of the operation of the Spirit, one 
of which affects a servile, the other a filial, mind ; 
nor is pneuma to be taken subjectively in the mean- 
ing ^ mindedness : ' the idea is rather to be under- 
stood thus : We have received the one true Spirit ; 
this Spirit leaves us not in a state of bondage, nor 
calls forth such a state again ; but he begets a filial 
consciousness. For the state of fear and bondage 
is not that of castaways, but subordinate only to 
that of children; the utterly dead man alone is 
without fear and without the feeling of bondage 
(vii. 9) ; with the awakening fear begins ; with the 
regeneration (vii. 25, etc.) love." 

Many render Aido to Pneuma, " the same Spirit ;" 
but it will hardly bear that rendering. The auto, 
without the article, as Alford says, expresses "the 
independence, and, at the same time, as coming 
from God, the preciousness and importance of the 
testimony." The neuter auto is used because Pneu- 
ma is neuter; but as Pneuma designates a person, 
therefore the pronoun should be rendered in the 
masculine, "himself." So the Vulgate and the 
Ehemish version. 



110 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The Vulgate, followed by many, renders "giveth 
testimony to our spirit." This implies that there 
is but one witness. The Geneva version renders, 
"beareth witness together with our spirit." So 
Bengel and others. Tholuck says " the compound 
verb may have the sense of the simple one, as in 
the Vulgate and Luther; but here the proper 
meaning would not be inappropriate. Our spirit 
concludes that we are the children of God. His 
Spirit impresses the seal upon that conclusion." 
Others say the Holy Spirit bears witness by an im- 
pression upon the mind of the believer, who adds 
his testimony from the consciousness of possessing 
the fruit of the Spirit. Some say the Spirit here is 
the gospel which was inspired by the Spirit ; our 
spirit deposes to our conformity in heart and life 
with the gospel, and thus we infer that we are the 
children of God. Bishop Sherlock strangely makes 
the witness of the Holy Spirit "the consciousness 
of our own good works," and the witness of our 
own spirit " the consciousness of our own sincerity." 
But, as Wesley well says, these are one and the 
same. Macknight and others make the witness of 
the Spirit the spiritual gifts bestowed miraculously 
on believers in the first age, and the witness of their 
own spirit the filial disposition which they possess. 
There are certainly two deponents here — the Holy 
Spirit and our spirit; but it is a joint attestation — 



APPENDIX. Ill 

uot as if the Holy Spirit deposed to the fact, and 
our own spirit independently corroborated it; or 
vice versa. The Holy Spirit operates upon our spirit, 
so as to induce concurrent action — as in all the syn- 
ergism of the spiritual life. The Holy Spirit finds 
a suitable subject — the spirit of a penitent believer 
— one who by his grace has been brought to peni- 
tence and faith — and he produces in the conscious- 
ness of the believer a persuasion of his sonship, 
inspiring filial sentiments, especially childlike con- 
fidence in God, which, as it is wrought by the Holy 
Spirit, is realized in the consciousness of the be- 
liever, so that it. is a conjoint testimony. The Holy 
Spirit thus puts the words "Abba, Father" into our 
mouth, and so we cry, "Abba, Father." Thus "he 
that belie veth on the Son of God hath the witness 
in himself." (1 John v. 10.) Summartureo i^ used 
in Rom. ii. 15 and ix. 1 (not elsewhere — the ap- 
proved reading in Rev. xxii. 18 being martureo), in 
the sense of confirming by the testimony of con- 
science. Here the Holy Spirit is the deponent, and 
he confirms the fact — sum being like con, in confir- 
mare. It is therefore impertinent to ask. To whom 
does the Holy Spirit or our spirit bear witness ? To 
whom does our conscience bear testimony, as in 2 
Cor. i. 10: "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of 
our conscience," etc.? By an act of introspection 
a man searcheth his own heart: "For what man 



112 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of 
man which is in him?'' (1 Cor. ii. 11.) In the 
present case the fact can be ascertained only by the 
Holy Spirit, through whose influence it takes place, 
and by whose agency it is substantiated in our con- 
sciousness — in this sense it is "a joint testimony." 
This seems to be the meaning of Chrysostom : " For 
it is not from the language merely, he says, that I 
make my assertion, but from the cause out of w^hich 
the language has its birth ; since it is from the Spirit 
suggesting it that we so speak. And this in another 
passage he puts into plainer words, thus : * God hath 
sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, 
crying, Abba, Father.' And what is that, ^Spirit 
beareth witness with spirit ? ' The Comforter, he 
means, with that Gift which is given unto us. For 
it is not of the Gift alone that it is the voice, but of 
the Comforter also who gave the Gift, he himself 
having taught us through the Gift so to speak. 
But when the Spirit beareth witness, what farther 
place for doubtfulness? For if it were a man, or 
angel, or archangel, or any other such power, that 
promised this, then there might be reason in some 
doubting. But when it is the Highest Essence that 
bestoweth this Gift, and beareth witness by the very 
words he bade us use in prayer, who would doubt 
any more of our dignity? For not even when the 
emperor elects any one, and proclaims in all men's 



APPENDIX. 113 

hearing the liouor due him, does anybody venture 
to gainsay." Olshausen ^vell says : " In this state 
of being children, then, the witness of our own spirit 
witli that of the Divine Spirit penetrates each other 
in a peculiar manner. The one that properly gives 
witness in this testimonium Spiritus is the Divine 
Spirit ; the human spirit is more the receiver of the 
witness from him, as it is said: Spirit witnesseth 
that Spirit is truth (1 John v. 6) — that is, the Spirit 
needs no witness but himself for his truth ; he has 
it wholly in himself, as the light is not and cannot 
be testified by aught but itself. . But as the physical 
light needs an eye, a faculty of receptivity, in order 
to be perceived, and as this is itself light, so is the 
spiritual light, the nous, the human pneuma, the 
eye for the Divine Spirit. This witness of the 
Spirit is not to be placed merely in the feeling (1 
John iii. 19), but in his whole inward and outward 
efficacy, must be taken together ; for instance, his 
comfort, his incitement to prayer, his censure of 
sin, his impulse to works of love, to witness before 
the world, and such like more. Upon the founda- 
tion of this immediate testimony of the Holy Spirit 
all the regenerate man's conviction of Christ and 
his work finally rests. For the faith in the Script- 
ure itself has its basis upon this experience of the 
divinity of the principle which it promises, and 
which flows into the believer while he is occupied 
8 



114 THE WAY OF SALVATIOX. 

with it. This passage is, besides, important as one 
of the most striking in which the human spirit is 
represented as not in and by itself identical with 
the Divine. . . . The human spirit may be de- 
filed by sin ; the Divine, not : he may be grieved 
only (Eph. iv. 30), or driven away ; but as the ab- 
solute principle of holiness, he is himself incapable 
of spot. By communication of this highest princi- 
ple of all life, man therefore first becomes one spirit 
with the Lord himself, as it is said, 1 Cor. vi. 17. 
Summarhirein here, as in ii. 15, is not of the same 
import with the simple verb; a twofold witness, 
rather, is here spoken of, that actually indeed 
blends again to one, wherein, however a positive 
and a negative side may be distinguished.'' This 
view is thus not identical with that of Bull and 
Scott, which recognizes but one witness, and that 
mediate and indirect. See Watson's Institutes, ii. 
24, p. 512. 

NOTE II. (Page 58.) 

As specimens of Confessional literature on this 
subject, we refer to the Augsburg and Anglican 
Confessions, with which all other Protestant Confes- 
sions agree in substance — though the Westminster 
and other Calvinistic Confessions contain some ad- 
ditions, which burden and obscure the doctrine. 

The Fourth and Sixth Articles of the Augsburg 



APPENDIX. 115 

Confession show what the Lutheran Churches teach 
on this subject: 

Article TV. — Of Justifimtion, 

They in Uke manner teach that men cannot be justified 
before God by tlieir own strength, merits, or works ; but 
that they are received into favor, and that their sins are 
remitted on account of Christ, who made satisfaction for 
our transgressions by his death. This faith God imputes 
to us as righteousness. 

Article VI. — Concerning New Obedience. 

They likewise teach that this faith must bring forth good 
fruits, and that it is our duty to perform those good works 
which God has commanded, because he has enjoined them, 
and not in the expectation of thereby meriting justification 
before him. For remission of sins and justification are 
secured by faith ; as the declaration of Christ himself im- 
plies : " When ye shall have done all those things, say, We 
are unprofitable servants." The same thing is taught by 
the ancient ecclesiastical writers ; for Ambrose says : " This 
has been ordained by God, that he who believes in Christ 
is saved without works, receiving pardon of sins freely 
through faith alone." 

The Eleventh and Twelfth Articles of the Church 
of England agree with the foregoing: 

Article XI. — Of the Justification of Man. 

We are accounted righteous before God only for the 
merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and 
not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore that we 
are justified by faitli only is a most wholesome doctrine, and 



116 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

very full of comfort, as more largely is explained in the 
Homily of Justification. 

Article XII. — Of Good Works. 

Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and 
follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and en- 
dure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleas- 
ing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out 
necessarily of a true and lively faith, inasmuch that by 
them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree 
discerned by the fruit. 

The Ninth and Tenth Articles of the Methodist 
Confession (bating an unimportant phrase or two) 
are the same as those cited from the Anglican Con- 
fession. 

The standard Catechisms of the several evangel- 
ical Communions agree, as might be expected, with 
their Confessions. They all agree with the following 
from the Second Wesleyan Methodist Catechism : 

Section IV. — Of the Redemption of the World by our Lord 
Jesus Christ, 

Q. What is redemption? 

A. The deliverance of man from the guilt, power, pollu- 
tion, and punishment of sin, and his restoration to the favor 
and image of God. 

Q. W^ho is the Redeemer of man? 

A. Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Matt. i. 21: "Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he 
shall save his people from their sins." Col. i. 14: "We 
have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness 



APPENDIX. 117 

of sins." 1 Tliess. i. 10: ''Jesus, wJiicli delivered us from 
the wrath to come." 

Q. What is the gospel? 

A. It is the good news of salvation through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, contained in tlie New Testament. 

Luke ii. 10, 11: ''Behold I bring you good tidings of 
great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is 
born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is 
Christ tlie Lord." 

Q. Can you more particularly describe the gospel? 

A. It is, 1. An account of the coming of Jesus Christ 
into the world, of his teaching, his manner of life, his mir- 
acles, his death, and his resurrection. 2. It contains the 
commands of God to all men, everywhere, to repent of their 
sins, and to believe in Christ. 3. It is the promise of God 
to pardon, sanctify, and save from eternal death, all who 
thus repent and believe on his Son. 

Q. What is repentance? 

A. True repentance is a grace of the Holy Spirit, whereby 
a sinner, from the sense of his sins, and apprehension of 
the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of 
his sin turn from it to God, with full purpose of, and en- 
deavors after, future obedience. 

Acts xi. 18 : "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted 
repentance unto life." Acts ii. 47 : " When they heard this 
they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and 
to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what sliall we 
do?" Ps. cxix. 50: "I thought on my ways, and turned 
my feet unto thy testimonies." 

Q. What is faith in general? 

A. It is a conviction of the truth and reality of tJiose 
things of which God hath told us in tlie Bible. 



118 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Heb. xi. 1 : "Now faith is the substance of tilings hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen." 

Q. What is faith in Jesus Christ? 

A. Faith in Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive 
and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us 
in the gospel. 

John i. 12: "As many as received him, to them gave lie 
power to become the sons of God, even to them that be- 
lieve on his name.'' Phil. iii. 9 : "And be found in him, 
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, 
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteous- 
ness which is of God by faith." 

Q. Is it by faith in Christ that we are justified? 

A. It is, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with 
God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. v. 1.) 

Gal. ii. 16: "Knowing that a man is not justified by the 
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we 
have believed in Jesus Christ, tliat we might be justified 
by the faith of Christ." 

Q. What is justification? 

A. Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he 
pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his 
sight, only for the sake of Christ. 

Eph. i. 7 : " In whom we have redemption through his 
blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his 
grace." 2 Cor. v. 21: "For he hath made him to be sin 
for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the right- 
eousness of God in him." Rom. v. 19: "As by one man's 
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience 
of one shall many be made righteous." 

Q. What other benefits do we receive at the same time 
with justification? 



APPENDIX. 119 

A. Adoption and regeneration. 

Rom. viii. 1 : "There is, therefore, now no condemnation 
to them whicli are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit." John i. 12: "As many as re- 
ceived him, to them gave he power to become the sons of 
God, even to them that believe on his name.^' 

Q. What is adoption? 

A. Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby, upon 
the forgiveness of sins, we are received into the number, 
and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. 

1 John iii. 1 : "'Behold what manner of love the Father 
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons 
of God." Eom. viii. 17: "If children, then heirs; heirs 
of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 

Q. What blessings do in this life accompany our justifi- 
cation and adoption? 

A; A sense of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the 
Holy Ghost, and hope of the glory of God. 

Eom. V. 1 : "Being justified by faith, we have peace with 
God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. v. 5: "The 
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost 
w^hicli is given unto us." Rom. viii. 17 : "And if children, 
then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 

Q. What is regeneration, or the new birth ? 

A. It is that great change which God works in the soul, 
when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of right- 
eousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by 
the Almighty, when it is created anew in Christ Jesus, wlien 
it is renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and 
true holiness. 

2 Cor. V. 17: "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is 



120 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all 
things are become new.'^ John iii. 3: "Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'' 2 Thess. 
ii. 13 : " God hath from the beginning chosen you to salva- 
tion, through sanctification of the Spirit/' 

Q. What follows from our regeneration, or being born 
again ? 

A. Then our sanctification being begun, we receive power 
to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, and to 
live in the exercise of inward and outward holiness. 

1 Pet. ii. 2 : "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk 
of the word, that ye may grow thereby." 

Q. What is entire sanctification? 

A. The state of being entirely cleansed from sin, so as 
to love God with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and 
strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. 

1 Thess. V. -23: "The very God of peace sanctify you 
wholly." Matt. v. 48: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 1 John iii. 3 : 
"And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth him- 
•self, even as he is pure." Matt. xii. 33: "Make the tree 
good, and his fruit good." 

Q. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at 
death? 

A. The souls of believers at death do immediately X)ass 
into glory, while their bodies rest in their graves till the 
resurrection. 

Phil. i. 23: "Having a desire to depart, and to be with 
Christ." 1 Thess. iv. 14: "Them also which sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with him." 

Q. What benefits will believers receive from Christ at 
the resurrection? 



APPENDIX. 121 

A. At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in 
glory, shall be openly acknowledged and accepted in the 
day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full en- 
joyment of God to all eternity. 

1 Cor. XV. 43: "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in 
glory.'' Matt. x. 32: "Whosoever therefore shall confess 
me before men, him will I confess also before my Father 
which is in heaven." 1 Thess. iv. 17: "vSo shall we ever 
be with the Lord." 

The Liturgies of the various Communions agree 
with their doctrinal standards — only more freedom 
of expression is allowed in Euchologies than in 
Confessions and Catechisms. We give a few exam- 
ples from the English Liturgy, which we suppose is 
the best ever compiled. The Methodist Sunday 
Service was abridged from it by John Wesley. 
The General Confession reads thus : 

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred, and 
strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed 
too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We 
have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone 
those things which we ought to have done, and we have 
done those things which we ought not to have done; and 
there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy 
upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, 
which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are 
penitent ; according to thy promises declared unto mankind 
in Christ Jesu our Lord. And grant, O most merciful 
Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, 
righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name. 
Amen. 



122 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The Absolution, or Remission of Sins, reads thus : 

Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may 
turn from his wickedness, and live ; and hath given power 
and commandment to his ministers to declare and pro 
nounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and 
remission of their sins: he pardoneth and absolveth all 
them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy 
gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true 
repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may 
please him which we do at tliis present, and that the rest 
of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the 
last we may come to his eternal joy, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

As this declaration is not restricted in Scripture 
to "the priest alone," as is prescribed in the rubric, 
Mr. Wesley omitted this form, and substituted the 
Collect for the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trin- 
ity, which unambiguously inculcates absolution 
through Christ: 

O Lord, we beseech thee, absolve thy people from their 
offenses, that through thy bountiful goodness we may be 
delivered from the bands of those sins, which by our frailty 
we have committed. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for 
Jesus Christ's sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen. 

In that venerable and glorious outburst of praise, 
which has floated down from the times of the fa- 
thers, the Te Deiim, we have these addresses to " the 
everlasting Son of the Father : " 



APPENDIX. 123 

When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst 
not abhor tlie Virgin's womb. 

When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou 
didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. 

Thou sittest at the right-hand of God, in the glory of 
the Father. 

We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge. 

We therefore pray thee, help thy servants, whom thou 
hast redeemed with thy precious blood. 

Make them to be numbered with thy saints, in glory 
everlasting. 

So in the Litany : 

O God the Father, of heaven, have mercy upon us, mis- 
erable sinners. 

O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy 
upon us, miserable sinners. 

O God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and 
the Son, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners. 

O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and 
one God, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners. 

Kemember not. Lord, our offenses, nor the offenses of 
our forefathers, neither take thou vengeance of our sins : 
spare us, good Lord, spare thy people whom thou hast re- 
deemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry 
with us forever — Spare us, good Lord. 

Then there is that deep-breathed Confession in the 
Communion Service : 

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker 
of all things. Judge of all men, we acknowledge and be- 
wail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time 



124 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, 
and deed, against thy divine Majesty, provoking most 
justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do ear- 
nestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdo- 
ings ; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us ; the 
burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, most 
merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, 
forgive us all that is past, and grant that we may ever 
hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the 
honor and glory of thy name, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

And the Absolution, in the same service : 

Almighty God our heavenly Father, who of his great 
mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that 
with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him, have 
mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your 
sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring 
you to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

The sentiment is the same in the Methodist Eitual, 
though the form of absolution is properly changed 
into a prayer, to preclude all pretensions to sacer- 
dotal absolution. 

And, to cite no more — though there is much more 
in the Liturgy that might be appropriately cited — 
what hearty repentance and undoubting faith in 
God's mercy, through Christ, are expressed in the 
following prayer in the Commination Service : 

O most mighty God, and merciful Father, who hast com- 



APPENDIX. Iz5 

passion upon all men, and liatest nothing that thou hast 
made, who wouldesl not the death of a sinner, but that he 
should rather turn from his sin, and be saved, mercifully 
forgive us our trespasses ; receive and comfort us, who are 
grieved and wearied with the burden of our sins. Thy 
property is always to have mercy ; to tliee only it apper- 
taineth to forgive sins. Spare us therefore, good Lord, 
spare thy people wliom thou hast redeemed ; enter not into 
judgment with thy servants, who are vile earth, and miser- 
able sinners ; but so turn thine anger from us, who meekly 
acknowledge our vileness and truly repent us of our faults, 
and so make haste to help us in this world, that we may 
ever live with thee in the world to come, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 

But this glorious doctrine of salvation by Christ 
has its fullest and richest development in the Hym- 
nody of the Church, which comes ringing down the 
ages. 

The Apocalyptic Seer gave the key-note in the 
new song (Rev. v.), so finely paraphrased by the 
sweet singer of our British Israel : 

Behold the glories of the Lamb 

Amidst his Father's throne: 
Prepare new honors for his name, 

And songs before unknown. 

Let elders w^orship at his feet, 

The Church adore around. 
With vials full of odors sweet. 

And harps of sweeter sound. 



12G THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Those are the prayers of all the saints, 
And these the hymns they jraise : 

Jesus is kind to our complaints, 
He loves to hear our praise. 

Eternal Father, who shall look 

Into thy secret will? 
Who but the Son shall take that book, 

And open every seal? 

He shall fulfill thy great decrees, 

The Son deserves it well ; 
Lo, in his hand the sovereign keys 

Of heaven, and death, and hell ! 

Now to the Lamb, that once was slain, 

Be endless blessings paid ; 
Salvation, glory, joy remain 

Forever on thy head. 

Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood. 

Hast set the prisoners free ; 
Hast made us kings and priests to God, 

And we shall reign with thee. 

The worlds of nature and of grace 

Are put beneath thy power; 
Then shorten thy delaying days, 

And bring the promised hour. 

One of the earliest post-apostolic hymns is that 
styled "The Morning Hymn," or the '^Hymniis 
Angelicus^^ — the '^Gloria in Excelsis'' of our Com- 
munion Service — ^with a slight variation from the 



APPENDIX. 127 

Greek original. It is thus given in Daniel's The- 
saurus : 

MoExixG Hymn. 

Glory to God in the highest, 
And on earth peace, 
Good-^vill toward men. 
We praise thee, 
We bless thee. 
We glorify thee. 
We give thanks to thee, 
For thv great glory, 
O Lord, heavenly King, 
God the Father Almighty. 
O Lord, the only-begotten Son, 
Jesu Christ, 
And the Holy Ghost. 
- O Lord God, 
Lamb of God, 
Son of the Father, 

Thou wlio takest away the sins of the world, 
Eeceive our prayer. 

Thou who sittest at the right-hand of the Father, 
Have mercy on us. 
For thou only art holy. 
Thou only art the Lord, 
O Jesu Christ, 
To the glory of God the Father. Amen 

Here is another of the very early Greek hymns, 
whose author is unknown; it is thus rendered in 
Mrs. Charles's " Voice of Christian Life in Song : " 



128 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Sweet Thoughts, with Eepentance to Jesus. 

Most sweet Jesus, long-suffering Jesus, 

Heal the wounds of my soul, 

Jesus, and sweeten my heart ; 

I pray thee, most merciful Jesus, my Saviour, 

That I, saved, may magnify thee. 

Hear me, my Saviour, lover of man. 

Thy servant, crying in affliction, 

And deliver me, Jesus, from judgment 

And from punishment, only One, long-suffering, 

Most sweet Jesus, only One, most merciful. 

Beceive thy servant, my Saviour, 

Falling before thee, with tears, my Saviour; 

And save, Jesus, me repenting. 

And from hell, O Master, redeem me, Jesus; 

Heal, my Saviour, my soul, 

Of its wounds, Jesus, I pray thee ; 

And with thine hand rescue me, my Saviour 

Compassionate, from the soul-murderer Satan, and save me. 

I have sinned, my most sweet Saviour ; 

Merciful, my Saviour, save me. 

Fleeing to thy defense, long-suffering Jesus, 

And make me meet for thy kingdom. 

Thou, O Jesus, art the light of my mind, 

Thou art the salvation of my lost soul ; 

Thou the Saviour, O Jesus, from punishment 

And from hell deliver me, weeping like a helpless child. . 

Save, O Jesus, O my Christ, save me, miserable. 

The earliest Christian hymn, whose author is 
known, is one by Clement of Alexandria, who lived 



APPENDIX. llO 

in the second century. There is a free version of it 
in our "Hymns for Schools and Families," begin- 
ning, " Shepherd of tender youth." A literal ver- 
sion, unrhymed, is given by Mrs. Charles ; we quote 
two stanzas, which show that the children of the 
Church were then taught the way of salvation, as 
we have been taught it in this nineteenth century : 

Hymn of the Saviour Christ. 
Mouth of babes who cannot speak. 
Wings of nestlings who cannot fly, 
Sure Guide of babes. 
Shepherd of royal sheep, 
Gather thine own 
Artless children 
To praise in holiness, 
To sing in guilelessness, 
With blameless lips, 
Thee, O Christ, Guide of children. 

Christ, King of saints, 
All-governing Word, 
Of the Highest Father, 
Chief of wisdom, 
Support of toil. 
Ever-rejoicing, 
Of mortal race. 
Saviour Jesus ! 
Shepherd, Husbandman, 
Helm, Kein. 

Here is a stanza from the Hymn of Ephraem 
Syrus (died A.D. 378), "On Palm Sunday:" 
9 



130 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Praise Him wlio once liimself did humble 

In love to save our human race, 
Praise Him who all the world doth gladden 

With God his Father's boundless grace. 

Gregory Naziaiizen (A.D. 328-389), another 
Greek Father, sings a hymn to Christ, which con- 
tains these sentiments : 

Unfruitful, sinful, bearing weeds and thorns, 
Fruits of the curse, ah ! whither shall I flee ? 

O Christ, most blessed, bid my fleeting days 

Flow heavenward — Christ, sole fount of hope to me. 

The enemy is near — to thee I cling — 

Strengthen, O strengthen me by might divine ; 

Let not the trembling bird be from thine altar driven — 
Save me — it is thy will, O Christ — save me, for I am thine. 

The Latin, or Ambrosian, Hymns of the fourth 
and fifth centuries celebrate Jesus as the only Sav- 
iour of the world. St. Ambrose thus concludes a 
"Hymn at the Cock-crowing:" 

Jesus, upon the falling look. 

And, looking, heal us, Lord, we pray ; 

For at thy look the falling rise. 
And guilt in tears dissolves f.way. 

Do thou, our Light, illume our sense. 
Do thou our minds from slumber free; 

For thee our voices first proclaim. 
And with our lips we sing to tliee. 



APPENDIX. 131 

St. Hilary, of Aries, in the early part of the fifth 
century, thus closes his "Midnight Hymn:" 

Our prison is this earth, 

And yet we sing to thee ! 
Break sin's strong fetters, lead us forth, 

Set us, believing, free. 

Meet for thy realm in heaven 

Make us, O holy King ! 
That through the ages it be given 

To us thy praise to sing. 

The apostles laid great stress on the resurrection 
of Christ, in connection with his atoning death. 
Thus Paul, faith shall be imputed to us for right- 
eousness, " if ^ye believe on him that raised up Jesus 
our Lord from the dead ; who was delivered for our 
offenses, and was raised again for our justification." 
" If tliou shalt confess Avith thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God 
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 
(Rom. iv. 24, 25 ; x. 9.) It is no vfonder, then, that 
the early Church sang so much about the resurrec- 
tion — Christ's resurrection, and ours resulting from 
his. Daniel, in his Thesaurus, says that the follow- 
ing Latin hymn is among the most ancient, and may 
have been sung by the newly-baptized catechumens, 
when, in their white robes, they first drew near to 
partake of the Lord's Supper : 



132 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Easter Hymn. 

The Supper of the Lamh to share, 
We come in vesture white and fair ; 
The Red Sea crossed, our hymn we sing 
To Christ, our Captain and our King. 

His holy body on the cross. 
Parched, on that altar hung for us, 
And drinking of his crimson hlood, 
We live upon the living God. 

Protected in the paschal night 
From the destroying angel's might, 
And by a powerful hand set free 
From Pharaoh's bitter slavery. 

For Christ our Passover is slain. 
The Lamb is offered not in vain; 
With truth's sincere unleavened bread 
His flesh he gave, his blood he shed. 

O Victim, worthy thou forever. 
Who didst the bands of hell dissever, 
Eedeem thy captives from the foe. 
The gift of life afresh bestow. 

When Christ from out the tomb arose, 
Victor o'er hell and all his foes. 
The tyrant forth in chains he drew, 
And planted paradise anew. 

Author of all, to thee we pray, 
In this our Easter joy to-day; 
From every weapon death can wield 
Thy trusting people ever shield. 



APPENDIX. 133 

Ambrose, according to Mone, wrote tlie beautiful 
Easter Hymn which closes with these stanzas : 

Death's fatal spear himself cloth wound ; 
With his own fetters he is bound. 
Lo ! dead tlie Life of all men lies, 
That life anew for all might rise ; 

That since death thus hath passed on all, 

The dead might all arise again ; 
By his own death-blow death might fall. 

And o'er his unsliared fall complain. 

Prudentius, the most prolific hymn-writer of those 
times, wrote a beautiful Funeral Hymn, w^hich, in 
its original Latin and translated in German, has 
been a favorite among tlie Protestants in Germany. 
Mrs. Charles gives us a version in the original ana- 
pestic measure, wdiich may have suggested those 
fine anapestic funeral hymns of Charles Wesley: 
"'Tis finished, 'tis done;'' "Hosanna to Jesus on 
high;" "Rejoice for a brother deceased;" "Ho- 
sanna to God" — which, to our regret, have been 
largely supplanted by namby-pamby ditties, and the 
like. We quote the closing stanzas of the hymn of 
Prudentius : 

We follow thy words, O Redeemer, 

When, trampling on Death in his pride, 

Thou sentest to tread in thy footsteps 
The thief on the cross at thy side. 



134 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

t 

The bright way of paradise, opened 

For every believer, lias space; 
And that garden again we may enter 

Which the serpent once closed to our race. 

Thus violets sweet, and green branches, 

Oft over these relics we strew ; 
The name on these cold stones engraven 

With perfumes we'll fondly bedew. 

The sentiment of those hymns, at once so human 
and so divine, reminds us of the contrast between 
the cheerlessness of paganism, whose devotees sor- 
row-ed without hope over the ashes of their beloved 
dead, and the believers in Him who abolished death, 
and brought life and immortality to light by the 
gospel — so strikingly illustrated in the symbols and 
epitaphs still seen in the Catacombs of Rome — spec- 
imens of which are copied into Winthrop's book on 
that subject. The ancient Christians never tire of 
dwelling on the death of Christ, followed by his 
resurrection, as "the death of death." We have 
traced the sentiment through our early British 
poets, including Milton — " Death his death's wound 
shall then receive '^ (Par. Lost, iii. 252) ; it will be 
recognized in a jjopular hymn by the Welsh poet 
Williams, " Death of death, and hell's destruction." 
It was suggested by Hosea xiii. 14, Vulg., Ero mors 
tua, 3Iorsf—"I will be thy death, O Death!" 
Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poictiers, in the 



APPENDIX. 135 

sixth century, one of the Last poets who wrote in 
Latin as his mother -tongue, wrote four hynnis, 
which have rung down through the centuries. His 
"Crux Benedicta'* is of the right ring, as sounded 
out in the opening stanza : 

The blessed cross shines now to us wliere once the Saviour 

bled, 
Love made him victim there for us, and there his blood 

was shed, 
And with his wounds our wounds he healed, and Avashed 

our sins away, 
And rescued from the raging wolf the lost and helpless 

prey. 

The following has been very popular : 

Yexilla Eegis Peodeuxt. 

The banner of the King goes forth, 

The cross, tlie radiant mystery, 
Where, in a frame of human birth, 

Man' Maker suffers on the tree. 

Fixed with the fatal nails to death, 

Witli outstretched hands and pierced feet; 

Here the pure Victim yields his ])reath, 
TJiat our redemption be complete. 

And ere had closed that mournful day. 
They wounded with the spear his side: 

That he might Avasli our sins away. 

His blood poured forth its crimson tide ! 



136 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The truth that David learned to sing 
Its deep fulfillment here attains : 
"Tell all the earth the Lord is King!'' 
Lo ! from the cross, a King he reigns. 

O most elect and pleasant tree, 
Chosen such sacred limbs to bear, 

A royal purple closeth thee — 
The purple of his blood is there ! 

Blest on whose arms, in woe sublime, 

The Ransom of the ages lay, 
Outweighing all the sins of time, 

Despoiling Satan of his prey. 

A fragrance from thy bark distils 

Surpassing heavenly nectar far; 
The noblest fruit thy branches fills, 

Weapon of the victorious war. 

Hail altar, Victim, hail once more ! 

That glorious passion be adored ! 
Since death the Life himself thus bore. 

And by that death our life restored ! 

Mrs. Charles, who wrote this version, notes the 
difference between the style of this period and that 
of the apostles, and the earlier hymnists of the 
Church, who spoke of the cross as "the accursed 
tree," the patibulumy or gallows. But Paul said, 
" God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is 
crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 



APPENDIX. 137 

vi. 14.) Paul uses it as a synonym for the gospel, 
and especially its grand central doctrine, the atone- 
ment of Christ, as in 1 Cor. i. 17, 18: "Christ sent 
me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not 
with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should 
be made of none effect. For the preaching of the 
cross is to them that perish, foolishness ; but unto us 
which are sayed, it is the power of God." About 
the time of Fortunatus the wood of the cross, which 
it was said Helena had found, began to be yener- 
ated, and the yeneration of it and its symbol degen- 
erated into a debasing fetichism; but Fortunatus 
obyiously meant by it the death on the cross and 
its atoning yirtue. The hymns in question do not 
inculcate Romish superstition, or the worship of 
the cross, nor, on the other hand, Socinian and 
Broad Church sentimentalism, making the cross 
subjectiye, the crucifixion of self and the like, as 
in the effusion of a pious and gifted Unitarian 
lady, which has gained a singular popularity, eyen 
among the evangelicals: 

Nearer, ray God, to tliee. 

Nearer to thee ; 
E'en though it be a cross 

That raiseth me. 

No doubt we all haye to bear the cross — each his 
own cross — and we may " o:lory " in it as Paul did 



138 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

— that is, exult in being considered worthy to suffer 
for Christ — but that is a very different thing from 
glorying in the cross of Christ. Wesley under- 
stood it : 

We too with him are dead, 

And shall with him arise : 
The cross on which he bows his head 
Sliall lift us to the skies. 

It is interesting to know that the Venerable Bede, 
a native of our mother isle (born in Durham, A.D. 
673, died 735), was a writer of evangelical hymns 
in Latin. Here are some stanzas from his hymn 
" On the Ascension of the Lord : " 

A hymn of glory let us sing ; 

New hymns throughout the world shall ring ; 

By a new way none ever trod, 

Christ mounteth to the throne of God. 

May our affections thither tend, 
And thither constantly ascend, 
Where, seated on the Father's throne, 
Thee reigning in the heavens we own ! 

Be thou our present joy, O Lord, 
Who wilt be ever our reward ; 
And as the countless ages flee, 
May all our glory be in thee ! 

Charles Wesley must have had Bede's hymn before 
him when he wrote those greatly superior hymns, 



APPENDIX. 139 

"Christ, the Lord, is risen to-day," and "Hail the 
day that sees him rise." 

There were many "songs in the night" of the 
Dark Ages. Foremost of the mediaeval hymns are 
those of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, who was 
born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in 1091. The pe- 
culiar view of the atonement — the "mystical sub- 
jective" — is called from him "the Bernardian 
theory," because he so earnestly set it forth, espe- 
cially against the famous Abelard, who asserted 
the moral subjective view, called from him "the 
Abelardian theory." Both of these erred, as did 
Anselm himself — but more in exaggerated state- 
ments of certain elements of the atonement than in 
the denial of other elements. Thus Bernard says : 
"Three things here meet together — the humility of 
self-renunciation; the manifestation of love, even 
to the death of the cross ; the mystery of redemp- 
tion, whereby he overcame death. The former two 
parts are nothing without the third. The examples 
of humility and love are something great, but have 
no firm foundation without the redemption." This 
is, indeed, rather cloudy — Mysticism was evolved 
from a nebula — but it asserts "the mystery of re- 
demption ; " and how sweetly and tenderly it en- 
tered into the experience of the pious abbot may 
be seen in his hymns. Portions of his "Hymn to 
Christ on the Cross" have in various translations 



140 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

enriched the several German and English Hymnals. 
Gerhard's German recension is a free version ; but 
it retains the spirit of the original, as may be seen 
in the English dress into which it has been put by 
J. W. Alexander, and transferred to our " Songs of 
Zion^' — Romanist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Meth- 
odist — indeed, all the Churches, joining in the use 
of this truly evangelical hymn : 

Salve Caput Ckuentatum. 

O sacred Head, once wounded, 

With grief and shame bowed down, 
Now scornfully surrounded 

With thorns, thine only crown. 
O sacred Head, what glory, 

What bliss till now was thine! 
Yes, though despised and gory, 

I joy to call thee mine. 

What thou, my Lord, hast suffered 

Was all for sinners' gain : 
Mine, mine, was the transgression, 

But thine the deadly pain. 
Lo, here I fall, my Saviour: 

^Tis I deserve thy place; 
Look on me with thy favor. 

Vouchsafe to me thy grace. 

The joy can ne'er be spoken, 

Above all joys beside, 
When in thy body broken 

I thus with safety hide. 



APPENDIX. 141 

Lord of my life, desiring 

Thy glory now to see, 
Beside thy cross expiring, 

I ^d breatlie my soul to thee. 

What language shall I borrow 

To thank thee, dearest Friend, 
For this thy dying sorrow, 

Thy pity without end ? 
O make me thine forever ! 

And should I fainting be, 
Lord, let me never, never 

Outlive my love for thee. 

Be near me when I'm dying, 

O show thy cross to me ; 
And to my succor flying. 

Come, Lord, and set me free. 
These eyes, new faith receiving. 

From Jesus shall not move ; 
For he who dies believing 

Dies safely through thy love. 

Bernard's grand hymn, " Jesu, Dulcis Memoria," 
has had a still wider range. Count Zinzendorf ren- 
dered it into German, and it has become very pop- 
ular in the Moravian Church. Charles AVesley 
early translated a portion of it, which used to be 
much sung among the Methodists. Five stanzas 
constitute Hymn 189 of the Southern Methodist 
Hymn-book — " Of him who did salvation bring." 
IVIrs. Charles has nineteen more literal stanzas. 



142 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Dr. Doddridge's beautiful hymn, " Jesus, I love thy 
charming name/' is an imitation of Bernard's hymn. 
Ray Palmer gives us a good version — "Jesus, thou 
joy of loving hearts." The Rev. Edward Caswell 
furnishes the following popular version, which we 
have inserted in our " Songs of Zion : " 

He is Precious. 

Jesus, the very thought of thee 
With sweetness fills tlie breast ; 

But sweeter far thy face to see, 
And in thy presence rest. 

No voice can sing, no heart can frame, 

Nor can the memory find, 
A sweeter sound than Jesus' name, 

The Saviour of mankind. 

O hope of every contrite heart, 

O joy of all the meek, 
To those who fall how kind thou art ! 

How good to those who seek ! 

But what to those who find ? Ah ! this 
Nor tongue nor pen can show; 

The love of Jesus, what it is 
None but his loved ones know. 

Jesus, our only joy be thou, 

As thou our prize wilt be ; 
In thee be all our glory now, 

And through eternity. 

Cardinal Peter Damiani (A.D. 1003-1072) wrote 



APPENDIX. 143 

a beautiful hymn on " The Joys of Heaven." Here 
are two stanzas from Mrs. Charles's version of it : 

Christ, tlie Palm of faithful victors! of that city make me 

free ; 
AVhen my warfare shall be ended, to its mansions lead tliou 

me — 
Grant me, with its liappy inmates, sharer of thy gifts to be I 

Let thy soldier, yet contending, still be with tliy strength 

supplied ; 
Thou Avilt not deny the quiet when the arms are laid aside ; 
Make me meet with thee forever in tliat country to abide I 

Adam of St. Victor, a contemporary of St. Ber- 
nard, wrote a number of hymns ; one of them, on 
" Spring and the Resurrection/' is truly evangel- 
ical. It begins with this stanza : 

The renewal of the world 

Countless new joys bringetli fortli, 

Christ arising, all things rise — 
Rise with liim from earth. 

All the creatures feel their Lord, 

Feel his festal light outpoured. 

Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny (A.D. 
1092-1156), has a similar hymn, "On the Resur- 
rection of our Lord," beginning thus : 

Lo! tlie gates of death are broken. 
And the strong man armed is spoiled 

Of liis armor, which he trusted. 
By the Stronger Arm despoiled. 



144 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Vanquished is the prince of hell, 
Smitten by the cross he fell. 

Anselm, Bishop of Lucca (A.D. 1036-1086), 
wrote " Meditations on the Sufferings of our Lord," 
from which we copy a couple of stanzas : 

Jesu, Sovereign Lord of heaven, sweetest Friend to me, 

King of all the universe, all was made by thee ; 

Who can know or comprehend the wonders thou hast 

wrought, 
Since the saving of the lost thee so low has brought? 

Thee the love of souls drew down from beyond the sky. 
Drew thee from thy glorious home, thy palace bright and 

high! 
To this narrow vale of tears thou thy footsteps bendest. 
Hard the work thou tak'st on thee, rough the way thou 

wendest. 

John Mauburn, of Brussels (A.D. 1460-1502), 
wrote a hymn on the " Nativity of Christ," in which 
he represents the incarnate Kedeemer saying : 

Pitying love for fallen man 

Brought me down thus low, 
For a race deep lost in sin, 

Kushing into woe. 
By this lowly birth of mine. 
Countless riches shall be thine. 

Matchless gifts, and free ; 
Willingly this yoke 1 take. 
And this sacrifice I make. 

Heaping joys for thee. 



APPENDIX. 145 

Mauburn was one of the latest mediaeval hvmnists. 
His Christmas Hymns were incorporated, in Latin 
and in German, into the Lutheran Hpnnals, as 
Luther began the Keformation just after Mau- 
burn's death. 

That which is considered the best of all these me- 
diaeval hymns is the " Dies Ir^e." It is attributed 
to a Franciscan monk, Thomas of Celano, who lived 
in the fourteenth century. It is solemn as the sep- 
ulcher, severe as the day of judgment, of which it 
sings. It indorses the "Sibyl," and, like other 
monkish writers, absurdly identifies "the woman 
that was a sinner," in Luke vii., with ]Mary Mag- 
dalene I The verses are rugged, and some of them 
falsely rhymed ; but the effect it produces is won- 
derful, and there is no end to the versions of it. 
Dr. Johnson could not read without tears the fol- 
lowing passage : 

King of dreadful majesty. 

Who sav'st the saved, of mercy free, 

Fount of pity, save thou me ! 

Think of me, good Lord, I pray, 
Who trodd'st for me the bitter way, 
Nor forsake me in tliat day. 

Weary satt'st thou seeking me, 
Diedst redeeming on the tree; 
Not in vain such toil can be I 

10 



146 THE AVAY OF SALVATION. 

Lord Roscommon died repeating the closing lines 
of his own excellent version of it: 

My God, my Father, and my Friend, 
Do not forsake me in my end. 

It is comforting to see that while medieval hym- 
nody was running into superstition, heresy, Mariol- 
atry, which have become rampant in the Romish 
Church, there was in every age, in sacred song, 
a recognition of the w^ay of salvation, by grace, 
through faith in the crucified and risen Redeemer. 

As might be expected, the Reformation opened 
the flood-gates of evangelical song. Luther's heart 
was brimful of poetry and music. He could not 
contain himself. 

It may be interesting to know that that solemn 
prayer, like a funeral knell, in the Burial Service, 
'^In the midst of life we are in death," etc., was 
composed by Notker, a monk of St. Gall (A.D. 
900) — "Media in vita in morte sumus'^ — and was 
versified by Luther, whose hymn is thus rendered 
by Mrs. Charles: 

In the midst of life we are in death ; 

What helper shall we seek but thee, O Lord, 

Who art justly incensed against our sins? 

Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy and Merciful Saviour, 

Deliver us not to bitter death ! 

The battle-song of the German Church, "Ein' 



APPENDIX. 147 

feste Burg ist miser Gott/' is said to have been 
suggested to Luther when on his ^vay to the Diet 
of Worms, whither he said he would go if there 
were as many devils there as there were tiles on the 
houses. A nervous translation of this hymn, by 
the late W. M. Bunting, of the Wesleyan Meth- 
odist Conference, may be found in our Songs of 
Zion: "A strong tower is the Lord our God." 

Luther wrote a hymn which so embodies the 
plan of salvation, and Luther's own experience, 
that we give it entire, as translated by Mrs. Charles 
— with Luther's own title prefixed, as follows : 

A SoxG OF Pkaise for the Great Benefits which 

God has Manifested to Us ix Christ. 

[Nun f rent euch, lieben Christen, (fmein.) 

Dear Christian people, all rejoice, 
Each soul with joy upspringing; 

Pour forth one song witli heart and voice, 
With love and gladness singing. 

Give thanks to God, our Lord above, 

Thanks for his miracle of love ! 

Dearly lie hath redeemed us ! 

The devil's captive, bound I lay, 

Lay in death's chains forlorn; 
My sins distressed me night and day, 

The sin within me born : 
I could not do the thing I would. 
In all my life was nothing good, 

Sin liad possessed me wholly. 



148 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

My good works could no comfort shed, 
Worthless must they be rated ; 

My free-will to all good was dead, 
And God's just judgments hated. 

Me of all hope my sins bereft ; 

Nothing but death to me was left, 

And death was hell's dark portal. 

Then God saw, with deep pity moved, 
My grief that knew no measure ; 

Pitying he saw, and freely loved — 
To save me was his pleasure. 

The Father's heart to me was stirred, 

He saved me with no sovereign word — ■ 
His very best it cost him. 

He spoke to his beloved Son, 
With infinite compassion : 
"Go hence, my heart's most precious crown. 
Be to the lost salvation. 
Death, his relentless tyrant, stay. 
And bear him from his sins away 
With thee to live forever!" 

Willing the Son took that behest : 

Born of a maiden mother. 
To his own earth he came a guest. 

And made himself my brother. 
All secretly he went his way, 
Veiled in my mortal flesh he lay. 

And thus tlie foe he vanquished. 

He said to me, "Cling close to me. 
Thy sorrows now are ending; 



APPENDIX. 149 

Freely I give myself for thee, 

Thy life witli mine defending. 
For I am thine, and thou art mine, 
And where I am there shalt thou shine. 
The foe sliall never reach us. 

*'True, he will shed my heart's life-blood, 
And torture me to death ; 
All this I suffer for thy good — 
This hold with firmest faith. 
Death dietli through my life divine; 
I, sinless, bear those sins of thine ; 
And so shalt thou be rescued. 

"I rise again to heaven from hence. 
High to my Father soaring, 
Thy Master there to be, and thence 

My Spirit on thee pouring : 
In every grief to comfort thee. 
And teacli tliee more and more of me. 
Into all truth still guiding. 

^' What I have done and taught on earth. 
Do thou, and teach, none dreading ; 
That so God's kingdom may go forth, 
And his high praise be spreading; 
And guard thee from the words of men, 
Lest the great joy be lost again: 

This my last charge I leave thee.'^ 

Paul Gerhard iulieritecl Luther's singing-robes 
(A.D. 1606-1776). He was minister of St. Nich- 
olas, Berlin, and archdeacon of Liibben, in Saxony. 
He wrote one hundred and twenty-three hymns, 



150 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

which have appeared in many translations and col- 
lections ; John Wesley translated some of them — ■ 
6. g., "Commit thou all thy griefs." His hymn, 
"The Lamb of God/' sounds like an echo of Lu- 
ther's, just quoted. 

Gerhard Tersteegen, in the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, wrote some fine hymns — one 
of which is the famous hymn translated by John 
Wesley, when in Savannah, beginning " Thou hid- 
den love of God, whose height." See hymn 620 in 
the Southern Methodist Hymn-book. It is full of 
evangelical truth and wonderful subjective pathos 
— many of the sentiments being derived from St. 
Augustin — showing how truly catholic is its spirit. 

Count Zinzendorf wrote a number of evangelical 
hymns, of which "Jesus, thy blood and righteous- 
ness" (a translation by John Wesley), and "Thou 
deep abyss of blessed Love" (a translation by Mrs. 
Charles), are specimens. One of Zinzendorf 's co- 
workers (A.D. 1688-1758), John Andrew Rothe, 
pastor of the Lutheran Church at Bertholsdorf, 
and subsequently at Thomendorf, is the author of 
that glorious hymn, translated by John Wesley — a 
portion of which trembled on the lips of the seraphic 
Fletcher, when dying in holy triumph — especially 
these lines : 

Jesus' blood, through earth and skies, 
Mercy, free, boundless mercy, cries ! 



APPENDIX. 151 

Now I liave found the ground wherein 

Sure my soul's anchor may remain; 
The wounds of Jesus — for my sin 

Before the world's foundation slain, 
Whose mercy sliall unshaken stay, 
Wlien heaven and earth are fled away. 

Father, thine everlasting grace 

Our scanty thought surpasses far : 
Thy heart still melts with tenderness: 

Thy arms of love still open are, 
Eeturning sinners to receive, 
That mercy they may taste, and live. 

O love, thou bottomless abyss ! 

Isij sins are swallowed up in tliee ; 
Covered is my unrighteousness, 

Nor spot of guilt remains on me. 
While Jesus' blood, through earth and skies, 
Mercy, free, boundless mercy, cries ! 

By faitli I plunge me in this sea : 

Here is my hope, my joy, my rest; 
Hitlier, wlien hell assails, I flee ; 

I look into my Saviour's breast: 
Away, sad doubt and anxious fear, 
Mercy is all that's written there. 

Though waves and storms go o'er my head, 

Though strengtli, and healtli, and friends be gone, 

Though joys be withered all and dead, 
Though every comfort be withdrawn — 

On this my steadfast soul relies, 

Father, thv mercv never dies. 



152 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Fixed on this ground will I remain, 
Though my heart fail, and flesli decay; 

This anchor shall my soul sustain. 
When earth's foundations melt away; 

Mercy's full power I then shall j)rove, 

Loved with an everlasting love. 

In the seventeenth century, "for the first time," 
says Mrs. Charles, "in the history of hymns, since 
Mary the mother of Jesus sang her song of joy, the 
names of women appear among the singers. Louisa 
Henrietta, born Princess of Orange, wife of the 
great Elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg, 
poured out her hope and trust in a Kesurrection 
Hymn, which, as a rock of faith, stands beside the 
hymns of Luther himself, or Paul Gerhard." Here 
is the first stanza, as Mrs. Charles renders it : 

Jesus, my eternal trust, 

And my Saviour, ever liveth : 
This I know; and deep and just 

Is the peace this knowledge giveth, 
Though death's lingering night may start 
Many a question in my heart. 

When Luther anism penetrated into Sweden, it 
carried its spirit of song with it ; and the glorious 
hero, Gustavus Adolphus; Spegel, Archbishop of 
Upsala (A.D. 1645-1714), and Franzen, Bishop of 
Hernosand, who died in 1818, and others more 
modern, have well echoed the strains of the great 



APPENDIX. 153 

Eeformer. Frauzen's '' Looking unto Jesus " sounds 
very much like one of our own hymns, especially as 
rendered by Mrs. Charles. 

The Reformed, or Calvinistic, Churches of the 
continent and of Scotland, evangelical as they 
were, had no hymn-books — they were content witli 
the Psalter — it is the case with some of them to 
this day. There is a hymn attributed to John 
Calvin, done into English by Mrs. E. L. Smith, 
which is not unworthy of the Geneva Reformer. 
It opens thus : 

Tliou art tlie King of mercy and of grace, 
Reigning omnipotent in every place : 
So come, O King, and deign 
Within our hearts to reign, 

And our whole being sway; 
Shine in us by thy light. 
And lead us to the height 
Of thy pure heavenly day. 

There are Romish hymns, or rather hymns com- 
posed by persons in the Romish Communion, writ- 
ten since the Reformation, which are truly evan- 
gelical in their character, though generally of the 
mystic type. Thus Michael Angelo, the architect 
of St. Peter's, when, as he says, his soul was re- 
modeled, wrote thus : 

Despite thy promises, Lord, 'twould seem 
Too much to hope that even love like thine 



154 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Can overlook my countless wanderings ; 
And yet thy blood helps me to comprehend 
That if thy pangs for us were measureless, 
No less, beyond all measure, is thy grace. 

Madame Guion, a devout mystic, who was too 
much in the dark to become a Protestant, and too 
much in the light to be a consistent papist, and who 
was put into the Bastile for heresy by her popish 
persecutors, wrote many beautiful hymns, some of 
which have been translated into English by Wesley 
and Cowper. They breathe the spirit of intense 
love to Christ, which presupposes justification by 
faith, though her surroundings precluded her hav- 
ing clear views of that glorious doctrine. One of 
the best specimens is that in our Hymn-book: 
"Come, Saviour Jesus, from above." 

The Church of England for centuries rested con- 
tent with the Psalters of Sternhold g^nd Hopkins, 
and Brady and Tate; Spenser, Rowlands, Ken, 
Herbert, and a few others, occasionally swept the 
evangelical lyre ; but till a very recent date there 
were no hymns accompanying the Psalter, except 
some doggerel versifications of the Creeds, Deca- 
logue, Lord's Prayer, and a hymn on the Lord's 
Supper by Doddridge, a Non-conformist (" My God, 
and is thy table spread?"), and a Christmas hymn, 
by Charles Wesley, a Methodist (" Hark, the her- 
ald angels sing"). 



APPENDIX. 155 

Things remained in this state till Dr. Watts, a 
Kon - conformist (A.D. 1674-1748), strung and 
tuned the British lyre for evangelical song — tak- 
ing for his mottoes, "And they sung a new song, 
saying, Thou art worthy ; . . . for thou wast slain, 
and hast redeemed us," etc. (Rev. v. 9), and SoUti 
essent (i. e., Christiani) convenire, carmenque Christo 
quasi Deo dicer e. Plinius in Ep.ist. 

This motto is from Pliny's celebrated Letter to 
the Emperor Trajan, concerning the Christians, in 
which he says, " They were vront to convene before 
it was light, on a certain day, to sing a hvmn to 
Christ as God.'' 

The first hymn in his First Book is a paraphrase 
of his first motto, and an illustration of his second, 
" Behold the glories of the Lamb." 

The singing in the Southampton meeting, where 
his father was a deacon, was so bad, the songs so 
rough, that he attempted " a new song." It was 
sung by the congregation, and they were so pleased 
with it that they asked for another, and another, 
and he continued till he finished his Three Books 
of Hymns and his Psalter, which, with his Lyric 
Poems, have proved an invaluable heritage to the 
Church in all its branches. The hymns are of un- 
equal merit, and some of them are disfigured by 
erroneous doctrines; but as a whole they are a 
grand thesaurus of sacred song, of the decided evan- 



156 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

gelical type. It is superfluous to give specimens — 
unless we may be allowed to cite together a couple 
of hymns, which show how he sets forth the twin 
doctrines of justification, in one sense by faith, and 
in another sense by works — e. g-. : 

The Value of Christ and his Eighteousness. 

No more, my God, I boast no more 

Of all the duties I have done ; 
I quit the hopes I held before, 

To trust the merits of thy Son. 

J^ow, for the love I bear his name, 
What was my gain I count my loss ; 

My former pride I call my shame, 
And nail my glory to his cross. 

Yes, and I must and will esteem 
A 11 things but loss for Jesus' sake : 

O may my soul be found in him. 
And of his righteousness partake ! 

The best obedience of my hands 
Dares not appear before thy throne ; 

But faith can answer thy demands, 
By pleading what my Lord has done. 

A Living and a Dead Faith. 

Mistaken souls, that dream of heaven, 

And make their empty boast 
Of inward joys and sins forgiven, 

While tliev are slaves to lust. 



APPENDIX. 157 

Vain are our fancies, airy flights, 

If faith be cold and dead ; 
None but a living power unites 

To Clirist the living head. 

'Tis faith that changes all the heart; 

'Tis faith that works by love; 
That bids all sinful joys depart, 

And lifts the thoughts above. 

'Tis faith that conquers eartli and hell 

By a celestial power ; 
This is the grace that shall prevail 
In the decisive liour. 
* 

' Faith mu.st obey her Father's will, 

As well as trust his grace ; 
A pardoning God is jealous still 
For his own lioliness. 

When from tlie curse he sets us free, 

He makes our natures clean ; 
Kor Avould he send his Son to be 

The minister of sin. 

His Spirit purifies our frame. 
And seals our peace with God : 

Jesus and his salvation came 
By water and by blood. 

Dr. Doddridge, another Independent minister, 
imitated Watts, his great model, and produced a 
volume of hymns, inferior to those of AYatts, but of 
great merit, and more catholic than they. They 



158 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

are evangelical to the core. What a noble outburst 
is his Resurrection Hymn, "Yes, the Redeemer 
rose!" But we have not room for specimens of 
his charming effusions, or of those of the multitude 
of hymnists of all the Churches, that followed these 
great leaders in preparing the poetical liturgy of 
the Church. They are our common inheritance. 
The greatest of all is Charles Wesley — he is, in- 
deed, facile princeps. Dr. Watts said he would give 
all the hymns he Avrote to be the author of Charles 
Wesley's "Wrestling Jacob." But our object is 
not to make a sacred anthology of these English 
hymns, much less to criticise them. 

It has been often remarked that sacred music, 
holy song, puts to flight the demon of discord and 
contention. Augustus Toplady was a fierce con- 
trovertist — a furious Calvinistic opponent of the 
Wesleys — and yet his great hymn, " Rock of Ages," 
has been attributed by Richard Watson and others 
to Charles Wesley (confounding it, perhaps, with 
his "Rock of Israel," a hymn of greater poetic 
merit), while Charles Wesley's great hymn, " Jesus, 
Lover of my soul," has been attributed to Cowper, 
who was of Toplady 's school ! They all agree when 
they sit together beneath the cross. Hear Toplady : 

Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee ; 
Let the water and the blood, 



APPENDIX. 159 

From tliy riven side wliicli flowed, 

Be of sin the double cure, 

Cleanse nie fronr its guilt and power. 

Not the labors of my hands 
Can fulfill thy law's demands ; 
Could my zeal no respite know, 
Could my tears forever flow, 
All for sin could not atone ; 
Thou must save, and thou alone. 

Nothing in my hand I bring ; 
Simply to thy cross I cling; 
Naked, come to thee for dress ; 
Helpless, look to thee for grace ; 
Foul, I to the fountain fly ; 
Wash me, Saviour, or I die. 

While I draw this fleeting breath. 
When mine eyelids close in death, 
When I soar tlirough tracts unknown. 
See thee on thy judgment throne, 
Rock of ages, cleft for me. 
Let me hide myself in thee. 



Hear AYesley: 



Jesus, Lover of my soul. 

Let me to thy bosom fly, 
While the nearer waters roll. 

While the tempest still is high : 
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, 

Till the storm of life be past ; 
Safe into the haven guide, 

O receive mv soul at last! 



160 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Other refuge have I none, 

Hangs my helpless soul on thee : 
Leave, ah ! leave me not alone, 

Still support and comfort me ! 
All my trust on thee is stayed, 

All my help from thee I bring, 
Cover my defenseless head 

With the shadow of thy wing. 

Thou, O Christ, art all I want; 

More than all in thee I find : 
Eaise the fallen, cheer the faint, 

Heal the sick, and lead the blind. 
Just and holy is thy name ; 

I am all unrighteousness : 
False, and full of sin, I am ; 

Thou art full of truth and grace. 

Plenteous grace with thee is found, 

Grace to cover all my sin: 
Let the healing streams abound. 

Make and keep me pure within : 
Thou of life the fountain art ; 

Freely let me take of thee : 
Spring thou up within my heart, 

Kise to all eternity ! 

Hear Cowper : 

Of all the gifts thy hand bestows, 
Thou Giver of all good, 

Not heaven itself a richer knows 
Than my Kedeemer's blood. 



APPENDIX. 161 

Faitli, too, the blood-rfeceiving grace, 

From the same hand we gain. 
Else, sweetly as it'suits our case, 

The gift had been in vain. 

Till thou thy teaching power apply. 

Our hearts refuse to see, 
And, weak as a distempered eye. 

Shut out the view of thee. 

Blind to the merits of thy Son, 

What misery we endure ! 
Yet fly that hand from which alone 

We could expect a cure. 

We praise thee, and would praise thee more : 

To thee our all we owe — 
The precious Saviour, and the power 

That makes him precious, too. 

Hear John Newton — joint composer with Cowper 
of the "Olney Hymns :'^ 

Cheer up, my soul, there is a mercy-seat. 

Sprinkled with blood, where Jesu;3 answers prayer; 

There humbly cast thyself beneath his feet, 
For never needy sinner perished there. 

Lord, I am come ! thy promise is my plea. 
Without thy word I durst not venture nigh ; 

But thou hast called the burdened soul to thee — 
A weary, burdened soul, O Lord, am T ! 
11 



162 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Bowed down beneath a heavy load of sin, 
By Satan's fierce temptations sorely pressed, 

Beset without, and full of fears within. 

Trembling and faint, I come to thee for rest. 

Be thou my refuge, Lord, my hiding-place, 
I know no force can tear me from thy side ; 

Unmoved I then may all accusers face. 

And answer every charge with, ''Jesus died." 

Yes, thou didst weep, and bleed, and groan, and die, 
Well hast thou known what fierce temptations mean ; 

Such w^as thy love, and now enthroned on high, 
The same compassions in thy bosom reign. 

Lord, give me faith — he hears — what grace is this ! 

Dry up thy tears, ^my soul, and cease to grieve: 
He shows me w^hat he did, and who he is — 

I must, I will, I can, I do believe. 

As the ancient Arians used hymns for the dis- 
semination of their heresies, and the orthodox used 
hymns to counterwork them, so in modern times 
errorists and schismatics have employed this great 
agency for their nefarious purpose, and have drawn 
out the catholic and orthodox muse in opposing 
them. But the great mass of the hymns in British, 
Irish, and American Hymnals, show forth the way 
of salvation in a clear and attractive light ; and we 
commend these "blessed hymns," as Richard Wat- 
son calls them — especially those of Wesley — ^o all 



APPENDIX. 163 

-svho are seeking to find the way, and to all who 
wish to walk surely and happily therein. 



NOTE III. (Page 77.) 

We steer between the two extremes of rejecting, 
neglecting, or decrying the Church and sacraments, 
on the one hand, or idolizing them, on the other. 

That it is the duty and priyilege of eyery man to 
be a member of the yisible Church is clear from the 
fact that Christ founded the Church, declared it 
should be perpetual and uniyersal, sent the Spirit 
to abide in it foreyer, appoints its ministers, makes 
it the conseryator and propagator of the truth, pro- 
tects and defends it by his proyidence and grace 
and trains up in it those who are m.embers of the 
inyisible Church, and who shall be members of the 
Church triumphant. To slight it, therefore, is an 
insane disregard of disti^iguished priyileges and 
blessings, and a daring insult to the Head of the 
body, which is the Church — yes, the visible Church, 
notwithstanding many of its members haye only a 
nominal and formal connection with his mystical 
body. 

The objection that the Church is so much divided 
that no one can tell which is true and which is false, 
is hardly worth considerinc:. The yisible Church 



164 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

is a congregation of professed believers in Christ, 
who assemble together in his name, for the preach- 
ing of the word of God, the celebration of his wor- 
ship, including the sacraments, and maintaining a 
godly discipline to keep them from the evil that is 
in the world. The Church is the kingdom of God, 
and the Bible is the constitution and laws of the 
realm ; from it every one must determine for him- 
self which Society of professed Christians corre- 
sponds with that infallible standard. There is no 
necessity of unchitrching any of these Communions. 
It seems proper enough to remain in connection 
with that in which one has been born and bred, or 
to unite with the one of nearest access, and remain 
in that, until by better advisement another shall be 
considered more in accordance with the Holy Script- 
ures; and it then becomes one's duty to join that, 
no matter what social ties may be disrupted by so 
doing. No one should belong to a Church, the doc- 
trines of which he does not believe — unimportant 
matters of opinion not being taken into account. 

With regard to forms of polity and modes of 
worship, the case is different. No precise platform 
is laid down in the Scriptures. We are nowhere 
commanded to stand, or kneel, or sit, in praying, or 
singing, or hearing the word, or receiving the sacra- 
ments. There is no injunction (nor indeed clear 
precedent) for Episcopacy, or Presbytery, or Inde- 



APPENDIX. 1G5 

pendency, or an eclectic form of polity. Perhaps, 
in the times of the apostles, all these fornls obtained 
in different places. In the age immediately follow- 
ing the apostolic. Episcopacy eyerywhere obtained, 
haying been introdnced, as Jerome tells us, for ex- 
pediency, and to preyent schisms. But it was not 
a prelatical Episcopacy, like that of the Greeks, 
Latins, and Anglicans; it seemed to liaye been 
more like that of the Lutherans and Methodists — 
the bishop being no higher in order than any other 
presbyter — the first among equals — the notion of 
an. apostolical succession continued by prelatical 
imposition of hands, as essential to a yalid minis- 
try, being, as Wesley says, " a fable " invented in a 
later age. 

We do not say, with Pope : 

For modes of faith let graceless zealots figlit, 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right ; 
For forms of government let fools contest, 
That which is best administered is best. 

We should seek to ground our faith absolutely on 
the Scriptures, and to follow them and our unpreju- 
diced reason in regard to forms of goyernment and 
worship. 

There is no command in the Scriptures, in so 
many words, to baptize children — so that parents 
neglecting their baptism may not be hastily de- 



166 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

nouncecl as derelict in their duty: they may not 
consider it a duty, as we do. It seems strange they 
do not. Ever since the days of Abraham, if not be- 
fore, children have belonged to the Church — under 
previous dispensations admitted by circumcision, 
under the Christian dispensation by baptism. 

Christ says the kingdom of heaven — that is, the 
Church — belongs to them — that is, they are enti- 
tled to membership in it, and baptism is the door of 
entrance. 

The apostles received by baptism the children of 
their converts, when they received the latter. (Acts 
xvi. ; 1 Cor. i.) 

The Fathers of the Church, orthodox and hetero- 
dox, declare they never heard of any one who would 
deny them the right to baptism. 

Baptism is matriculation in the school of Christ 
— disciplining children in the name of the Trinity — 
so that being thus registered as students, they may 
be regularly taught to observe all things which 
Christ has commanded. Surely they ought to be 
brought up in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord. Where is that to be done but in the Church ? 
Family instruction should be conducted as a part 
of the training which the Church is bound to secure 
to the children of the Church. 

No argument can be brought against the baptism 
of children which could not have been brought 



APPENDIX. 167 

against their circumcision under previous dispen- 
sations; and it must be kept continually in mind 
that we are under the same covenant as that under 
which Abraham and his family were placed — the 
sacrament of circumcision being its sign and seal. 

Thus saith the mercy of the Lord, 

"I'll be a God to thee: 
I'll bless thy numerous race, and they 

Shall l)e a seed for me." 

Abraham believed the promised grace. 

And gave his son to God ; 
But water seals the blessing now, 
. That once was sealed with blood. 

Thus Lydia sanctified lier house, 

When she received the word; 
Thus the believing jailer gave 

His household to the Lord. 

Thus later saints. Eternal King! 

Thine ancient truths embrace; 
To thee their infant offspring bring. 

And humbly claim the grace. 

As to the mode in which baptism should be ad- 
ministered, it must be confessed on all hands that 
there is no command to do it by sprinkling, or 
pouring, or immersion — any one of these being 
equally valid. 

The baptismal terms, as they are employed in the 



168 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Septuagint, Apocryplia, and New Testament, do not 
indicate any mode, but only purification by water, 
literally or mystically, as in Christian baptism. 

Thus the baptism of the Holy Spirit is symbol- 
ized by water-baptism, as John the Baptist says, 
Matt. iii. 11, and Jesus himself, Acts i. When the 
baptism of the Spirit took place, it was by an out- 
pouring (Acts ii. ; x. ; xi.), and it seems proper that 
water-baptism should be administered in like man- 
ner. Hence Paul speaks of. the washing of regen- 
eration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, shed 
upon — that is, poured out upon — us abundantly. 
The thing being like the thing signified. 

It does not appear how baptism could have been 
administered to the multitudes that John and the 
disciples of Jesus baptized, except by affusion ; and 
John in ancient pictures in the catacombs, reaching 
back nearly or quite to the apostolic age, is repre- 
sented as pouring out water from a shell on the 
head of Jesus, when he baptized him. 

It has been shown a thousand times that eis^ 
translated "into," and apo and eh, translated "out 
of," are prepositions of motion, meaning " unto " and 
"from," as well as "into" and "out of;" and here 
especially it would seem to mean "unto," as eis is 
not prefixed to the noun, as is commonly the case 
when "into" is meant, and apo seldom means "out 
of," but usually " from," Thus John, Jesus, Philip, 



APPENDIX. 169 

and the eunuch, went down to the water, for the sake 
of convenience, and came up from it after the water 
was applied to the subject, and not the subject to 
the water. 

It must have been physically impossible for John 
to immerse so many subjects, as well as highly inex- 
pedient on the score of propriety, delicacy, health, 
and the like ; and so it w^ould seem to be in all times 
and places, especially in high latitudes, in the case 
of children, delicate women, and sick persons, and 
those w^ho may be circumstanced like the Philip- 
pian jailer, who was baptized in the prison at mid- 
night. 

It is true, in the age succeeding the apostles 
immersion began to be used in baptism; but as 
Tertullian (A.D. 200), Basil, Ambrose, and other 
Fathers, tell us, it was a trine immersion — three 
dippings — the subject, whether man, woman, or 
child, being naked — salt, oil, milk, and honey being 
administered to the subject, to give greater solem- 
nity and efficiency to the sacrament, w^hen it was 
thought to possess, or at least to convey, a regen- 
erating virtue. The burial with Christ in baptism 
w^as spoken of as an interment in a watery grave ; 
and then by a marvelous jumble of figures those 
baptized were spoken of as little fishes born in the 
water, Christ himself being the Ichthus, the great 
FISH, as so often represented in ancient symbols! 



170 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The burying in or by baptism, spoken of by the 
apostle, alludes to no such absurd fancies; it sim- 
ply means that by our baptism we are pledged to a 
death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness 
— a complete and an obvious separation from sin, 
just as the burial of Christ was the natural sequence 
and the obvious proof of his death. 

But those who want a more thorough handling of 
this subject are referred to our Treatise on Baptism, 
in which the right of infants to Church-member- 
ship is impregnably established; the propriety of 
affusion as the mode of administration is clearly 
shown, as well as the perpetual obligation and 
great benefit of the ordinance — all objections being 
candidly stated, and, as we believe, satisfactorily 
refuted. Those who arC' very curious in regard to 
this subject are referred to Bingham's "Christian 
Antiquities" (Book xi., chap. 11), where he proves 
by numerous citations from the Greek and Latin 
Fathers that men and women were baptized apart, 
as naked as when they were born — deaconesses 
being employed for the sake of decency to assist at 
the baptism of women, taking off their clothes, and 
putting them into the water, so that they might not 
be much exposed when the priest gave them the 
three dippings, which they never omitted except 
when there was sickness, scarcity of water, or the 
like : in such case they baptized by affusion, tlie law- 



APPENDIX. 171 

fulness of which Cyprian proves from the sprink- 
lings under the Law (Num. viii. ; xix.), and from 
Ezek. xxxvi. 25, " I will sprinkle clean water upon 
you" — the sanctification symbolized in baptism. 

As baptism represents the sanctifying influence 
of the Holy Spirit, it is not uncommon to speak of 
the latter as the baptism of the Spirit; though in 
the New Testament this formula is used only of his 
miraculous affusion, as in Matt. iii. 11 ; Acts i. ; ii. ; 
viii. ; X. ; xi. ; xix. But as the sanctification of the 
Spirit operates like a purifying fire, it may not im- 
properly be called a baptism, as in the following 
hymn, by Charles ^yesley : 

An inward baptism of pure fire, 
Wherewith to be baptized I have ; 

'Tis all my longing soul's desire ; 
This, only this, my soul can save. 

Straitened I am till this be done ; 

Kindle in me the living flame ; 
Father, in me reveal thy Son ; 

Baptize me into Jesus' name. 

Transform my nature into thine. 

Let all my powers thine impress feel, 

Let all my soul become divine, 

And stamp me with thy Spirit's seal. 

Love, mighty love, my heart o'erpower; 

Ah! why dost thou so long delay? 
Cut short the work, bring near the hour, 

And let mc see tlie perfect day. 



172 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Behold, for thee I ever wait, 

Now let in me thine image shine, 

Now the new heaven and earth create, 
And plant with righteousness divine. 

If with the wretched sons of men 

It still be thy delight to live. 
Come, Lord, beget my soul again, 

Thyself thy quickening Spirit give. 

The design and normal result of baptism are thus 
set forth by Dr. Watts, in a paraphrase of Rom. vi. : 

Do we not know that solemn word. 
That we are buried with the Lord ; 
Baptized into his death, and then 
Put off the body of our sin ? 

Our souls receive diviner breath, 
Baised from corruption, guilt, and death : 
So from the grave did Christ arise. 
And lives to God above the skies. 

No more let sin or Satan reign 
Over our mortal flesh again; 
The various lusts we served before, 
Shall have dominion now no more. 

Those who think the baptism of children is a 
profanation of the sacrament, or at least a useless 
ceremony, do not seem to know that it is the ma- 
triculation of children into the school of Christ, 
where they are furnished with all "the means of 
grace," that they may be brought up in the nurt- 



APPENDIX. 173 

ure and admonition of the Lord. Charles Wesley 
understood the subject. He thus responds to the 
Saviour's invitation, "Suffer the little children to 
come unto me : '^ 

Jesus, kind, inviting Lord, 
AVe with joy obey thy word, 
In their earliest infancy 
Bring our little ones to thee : 
Born they are, like us, in sin, 
Touch th' unconscious lepers clean; 
Purchase of thy blood they are. 
Save them by thy dying prayer. 

Dr. Watts thus expounds the apostle's metaphor 
of the wild and good olive-trees, which sets forth 
the essential identity of the Christian with the 
Abrahamic covenant: 

Gentiles by nature, we belong 

To the wild olive wood ; 
Grace takes us from the barren tree. 

And grafts us in the good. 

With the same blessings, grace endows 

The Gentile and the Jew; 
If pure and holy be the root, 

Such are the branches too. 

Then let the children of the saints 

Be dedicate to God ; 
Pour out thy Spirit on them, Lord, 

And wash them in thy blood. 



174 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Tims to the parents and their seed 

Shall tliy salvation come, 
And numerous liouseholds meet at last 

In one eternal home. 

Here is a beautiful prayer to be offered at the 
' baptism of a child. It is by Schmolk, translated 

by Miss Cox : 

Jesus, Lord, thy servants see, 
Offering here ohedience willing; 

Lo, this infant comes to thee. 

Thus thy hlest command fulfilling ; 

'Tis for such, thyself declarest, 

That the kingdom thou preparest. 

Take the pledge we offer now, 
To the font baptismal hastening; 

Make him, Lord, thy child below. 
Let him feel thy tender chastening, 

That he here may love and fear thee, 

And in heaven dwell ever near thee. 

Prince of Peace, thy peace bestow, 
Shepherd, to thy sheep-fold take him. 

Way of life, liis pathway show. 

Head, thy living member make him, 

Vine, abundant fruit providing, 

Keep this branch in thee abiding. 

Lord of grace, to thee we cry. 
Filled our hearts to overflowing ; 

Heavenward take the burdened sigh. 
Blessings on the babe bestowing ; 



APPENDIX. 175 

AVrite tlie name we now liave given, 
"Write it in tlie book of heaven. 

Here is a beautiful hymn, by Dr. ]\Ionsell, to be 
used at the baptism of a child : 

God of that glorions gift of grace 
By which thy people seek thy face, 
AVhen in thy presence we appear, 
Vouchsafe us laith to venture near. 

Confiding in tliy truth alone. 
Here, on the steps of Jesus' tlirone, 
We lay the treasure tliou hast given 
To be received and reared for heaven. 

Lent to us for a season, we 
Lend him forever, Lord, to tliee; 
Assured tliat if to thee he live, 
AVe gain in wliat we seemed to give. 

Large and abundant blessings slied 
AVarm as these prayers upon his head; 
And on his soul the dews of grace. 
Fresh as tliese drops upon his face. 

Make him, and keep him, thine own child, 
Meek follower of the L^ndefiled ; 
Possessor here of grace and love. 
Inheritor of heaven above. 

Here is another, by Charles Wesley : 

Lord of all, with pure intent. 

From tlieir tenderest infancy. 
In tliy temple we present 

Wliom we first received from thee: 



176 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

Through thy well-beloved Son, 
Ours acknowledge for thine own. 

Sealed with the baptismal seal, 
Purchased by the atoning blood, 

Jesus, in our children dwell. 

Make their heart the house of God : 

Fill thy consecrated shrine. 

Father, Son, and Spirit divine. 



The End. 



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